Incorporation of charterparty clauses into Bills of Lading

Much has been said about the unfairness of binding bill of lading holders with the charterparty contracts, the copies of which are rarely provided together with the bills of lading. Besides, many people felt strongly that importing the provisions of an unseen contract creates a more risky international trade environment. Yet, it is an undeniable fact that incorporation clauses can make the holders subject to the charterparty provisions, even though the copies of these contracts are not shown to them. Nonetheless, since the early years, the issue of whether the charterparty terms are actually imported into a bill of lading has given rise to a great amount of litigation between the carriers and the holders. After a long line of judicial decisions given in this vein, it is now clear that for the charterparty clauses to be incorporated, both the bill of lading and the charterparty need to overcome a set of hurdles, which are popularly known as “the rules of incorporation”. It is equally clear that while these rules establish the formulas to incorporate, they also cause numerous discussions about their workability and longevity in the ever-changing shipping and international trade practice. In the meantime, the rules raise the questions of to what extent the holders are protected against the potential pitfalls arising from the incorporation clauses, and whether the solutions to the problems are adequate in terms of giving commercial efficacy to these clauses. In particular, the overall impact of the rules of incorporation forces all the concerned parties to ask one question: Is the glass half full or half empty? With a view to bringing these issues to light, this thesis thoroughly examines and compares the respective rules of incorporation adopted in English and U.S. law, which offer strikingly different methods to tackle the question of incorporation. In order to illustrate the impacts of the incorporation clauses on the contractual position of the bill of lading holders, the thesis looks at the incorporation of the particular charterparty clauses which have mostly given rise to disputes between the parties, such as forum selection, demurrage, fiost and similar clauses. Notably, the thesis discusses the viability of the incorporation rules in the wake of the new international movements concerning the unification of the laws governing the bills of lading. Finally, this study, inter alia, concludes that the trend is more receptive to the carriers’ imposition of monetary liabilities through the incorporation of charterparty terms than the enforcement of charterparty forum selection clauses.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Contratto di quartiere San Giuseppe Baia del Re di Piacenza. Il controllo di qualità e la flessibilità nel progetto di riqualificazione

Il progetto si è sviluppato nell’ambito del Programma di Sperimentazione CER denominato Contratto di Quartiere San Giuseppe Baia del Re, Comune di Piacenza finanziato attraverso il DM 22 ottobre 1997. Ha riguardato la riqualificazione urbanistica di un ampio ambito della periferia urbana di Piacenza, già interessato da un Piano di Recupero per la trasformazione di alcune zone industriali dismesse e per la formazione di un nuovo insediamento integrato comprendente funzioni terziarie, produttive, commerciali e residenziali. Con riferimento alle attività di sperimentazione richieste dal bando del CER, la ricerca ha sviluppato le tematiche dei “sistemi qualità” applicati al processo edilizio e della “qualità fruitiva” degli spazi abitativi, ritenute particolarmente significative sia in relazione agli scenari di produzione dell’edilizia residenziale pubblica di nuova costruzione, che in rapporto ai caratteri specifici dell’intervento progettuale

Industrial district firms do not smile: structuring the value chain between local and global

Defined as local manufacturing systems, industrial districts have been recognized as particularly important for the location of firms' manufacturing activities intertwined with innovation processes. The debate on the internationalization of production has stressed the low value related to manufacturing within value chain activities (smile framework), emphasizing the need to focus on high value-added activities (R&D or marketing). Following multinational enterprises' internationalization strategies, also district firms have progressively offshored their production phases in the past years. However, recent studies focused on backshoring have revamped the attention on the domestic control of production for firms' competitiveness. This chapter explores district firms' location choices for manufacturing activities between local and global. Based on an empirical analysis of about 260 Italian district firms specialized in mechanics, furniture, and fashion and supported by a case study investigation, our results show that despite district internationalization processes, a non-negligible amount of firms still carry out in-house or through outsourcing - production activities at district level. Larger firmscouple district production and long-term upstream outsourced internationalization activities. The district system confirms its role of pooling specialized competences and product know-how, being decisive for firms' innovation and responsiveness to national and international markets. Backshoring, instead, is a very limited phenomenon and linked to upgrading strategies