Estonia revises Merchant Shipping Act, Maritime Safety Act

The Parliament of Estonia passed the revised Merchant Shipping Act and the revised Maritime Safety Act.

Both these legislation documents were published on March 27th, 2023, and entered into force on the same date.

Merchant Shipping Act

This Act regulates legal relationships arising from merchant shipping.

For the purposes of this Act, merchant shipping is deemed to be an activity that is related to the use of ships for the carriage of cargo, passengers, luggage, and mail, for the survey and extraction of the living and other resources of the sea and the mineral resources below the seabed, for ice breaking, towage, and salvage operations and for other lawful purposes.

For the purposes of this Act, an operator is an owner or bareboat charterer of a ship who is in possession of the ship and uses it in the operator’s own name.

In the event of carriage between ports in the Republic of Estonia (cabotage), the contracting parties shall not agree to apply the law of a foreign state.

The contracting parties may, upon agreement, deviate from the provisions of this Act, unless it is expressly provided by law or it arises from the nature of a provision that deviation from this Act is prohibited.

Details of the revised Merchant Shipping Act are in the document (below).

Maritime Safety Act

This Act regulates the maritime safety of ships, recreational craft, and other watercraft and their navigational safety on navigable inland waters, the security of ships, and ensuring the safety of vessel traffic on waterways.

Sections 351 –353 and Chapters 15 and 16 of this Act are applied, with regard to registration, also to recreational craft navigating in transboundary waters, ships with an overall length of fewer than 12 meters, and personal watercraft that are not set out in subsection 1 of this section.

This Act applies to ships, recreational craft, and other watercraft flying a foreign flag if so provided for in this Act.