Maritime & Shipping Law

Balikpapan's position on one of Indonesia's principal maritime corridors — at the centre of a province whose coal, timber, and energy exports move overwhelmingly by sea — makes admiralty and shipping law a practical, not merely theoretical, necessity for the clients we serve. We advise on carriage of goods and the liability regime that governs loss or damage to cargo in transit, charter party disputes arising from voyage and time charters, vessel registration and ownership, and the documentation — bills of lading chief among them — whose precise wording frequently determines who bears a loss that has already occurred by the time the dispute reaches us.

We advise on port operations and the regulatory framework administered by port authorities and the Ministry of Transportation, and we represent clients in general average disputes, where the shared sacrifice doctrine of maritime law requires an apportionment of loss across cargo interests that is rarely straightforward and often contested by parties with every incentive to contest it. We also advise on the cabotage principle under the Shipping Law (UU Pelayaran), which reserves domestic sea transport to Indonesian-flagged vessels and Indonesian shipping companies — a rule with real consequences for how foreign and joint-venture logistics operations must structure their Indonesian presence, and one that catches unprepared clients more often than the statute's apparent simplicity would suggest.

Maritime matters move quickly and often involve assets in motion — a vessel that may sail from jurisdiction before a claim can be secured, cargo that deteriorates in value with every day a dispute remains unresolved, a charter that expires while the parties are still arguing about its terms. Our practice is built for the pace the sector demands: rapid factual assessment, prompt interim relief where the law permits it, and the kind of commercial pragmatism that recognises a shipping dispute resolved in weeks is usually worth more to a client than one resolved in years, however strong the underlying claim.