Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
LOF 1990
Nicholas Gaskell*
1. Introduction
The Lloyd’s Standard Form of Salvage Agreement (more commonly referred to as the Lloyd’s Open Form or LOF1) is the most widely used international salvage contract.2 In September 1990, its 100th birthday was celebrated by the production of a new edition, LOF 1990.3 The timing and content of LOF 1990 were greatly influenced by the International Maritime Organization’s International Convention on Salvage, agreed in April 1989.4 Indeed, the most striking feature of the new form is that it incorporates parts of the Convention, giving it contractual effect. It is interesting to note that the Convention itself was also greatly inspired by the previous edition, LOF 1980.5 There is, thus, a curiously symbiotic relationship between the two instruments. To understand the one, it is necessary to know about the other. The purpose of this comment is to introduce some of the main features of the new form, placing it where possible in the context of the 1980 edition and the 1989 Salvage Convention.6
* Senior Lecturer, Institute of Maritime Law, Faculty of Law, University of Southampton.
1. Because it leaves open the amount of any salvage reward to be decided later by arbitration.
2. General literature on the LOF includes the following: N. Gaskell, C. Debattista, R. Swatton, Chorley and Giles’ Shipping Law, 8th edn. (1987), 459–466; G. Brice, Maritime Law of Salvage (1983), Chap. 6; D. W. Steel and F. D. Rose, Kennedy’s Law of Salvage, 5th edn. (1985), paras. 1307–1328; N. Gaskell, “Contractual Remedies and the LOF” [1986] LMCLQ 306; D. Thomas, “Lloyd’s Standard Form of Salvage Agreement: a descriptive and analytical scrutiny” [1978] 2 LMCLQ 276; J. Griggs, “An Examination of Lloyd’s Standard Form of Salvage Agreement” [1974] 2 LMCLQ 138.
3. LOF 1990 is reproduced infra, pp.117–122.
4. See generally, N. Gaskell, “The International Convention on Salvage 1989” (1989) 4 IJECL 268; N. Gaskell, “The Enactment of the 1989 Salvage Convention in English law: policy issues” [1990] LMCLQ 352; G. Brice, “New Salvage Convention: green seas and grey areas” [1990] LMCLQ 32; D. Watkins, “Salvage Convention 1989, new perspectives” [1989] LMCLQ 416; E. Gold, “Marine salvage—Towards a new regime” (1989) 20 JMLC 487; J. Wooder, “New Salvage Convention: A Shipowners’ perspective” (1990) 21 JMLC 81; D. Kerr, “The 1989 Salvage Convention: expediency or equity?” (1989) 20 JMLC 505. For the text of the Convention see [1990] LMCLQ 54.
5. The 1989 Salvage Convention was also intended to build upon the 1910 Salvage Convention. Many of the provisions of the latter also influenced the 1989 Salvage Convention, see e.g. Art. 2 (Art. 12(1) of the 1989 Salvage Convention), Art. 3 (Art. 19), Art. 5 (Art. 12(3)), Art. 6 (Art. 13), Art. 8 (Arts. 13(1), 18), Art. 9 (Art. 16), Art. 10 (Art. 23), Art. 11 (Art. 10), Art. 13 (Art. 5), Art. 14 (Art. 4).
6. The writer will not attempt a general assessment of the merits of the 1989 Salvage Convention. For that see the articles cited supra, fn. 4.
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