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A container ship catches fire in the Arabian Sea. Your cargo is in a hold that never burned, on a vessel you do not own, in a casualty you had nothing to do with. Weeks later you receive a demand for 54 percent of the value of your goods before anyone will release them. That is not a mistake and it is not extortion. It is general average, one of the oldest surviving principles in commercial law, and the demand is enforceable. For cargo interests it is the single most surprisi

The $500 per package liability limit under the US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act is one of the most litigated provisions in American maritime law. It is also one of the most consequential for anyone with cargo moving to or from the United States, because when a carrier invokes it successfully, the gap between what cargo is actually worth and what the carrier owes can be enormous. A container of electronics worth $2 million becomes a $500 claim if the carrier can establish that

China's New Maritime Code Is Now in Effect On May 1, 2026, four days ago, China's revised Maritime Code came into force. This marks the first comprehensive revision of the Code since its original enactment in 1993, and the changes are not minor adjustments around the edges. They affect cargo liability, limitation of liability amounts, the scope of who qualifies as a carrier, how damages are calculated, how limitation periods work, and, most significantly for international ope