Transport & Merchant Shipping

AEQUITAS regularly advises clients on a variety of issues pertaining to legal regulation of transportation activities in Kazakhstan. The firm’s projects embrace both comprehensive research of legislation covering different aspects of transportation activities, and advice on legal relationships between transportation companies and their customers. The firm has been engaged to perform full due diligence of major Kazakh transportation companies in the context of M&A transactions economically significant for Kazakhstan.

The firm’s lawyers were engaged by EBRD to draft the Merchant Shipping Law and Railway Transport Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Development of trade relations and growth of commodity turnover, including on account of merchant shipping where Kazakhstan does not have long-term historical traditions, has dramatically boosted the role of legal support in this area.

AEQUITAS is one of a few local law firms possessing experience in the merchant shipping area. For many years, the firm was representing BUE in connection with its contractor work and sea transportation services for an oil consortium in the Caspian offshore zone. The firm’s lawyers advised major international banks (Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds TSB Bank Plc. and other) on a range of merchant shipping matters.

Services

• Advice on different matters pertaining to local and international legislation in the sphere of transportation and merchant shipping.
• Preparation of legal opinions on various issues relating to the state regulation of transportation activities.
• Drafting and review of shipping contracts involving different means of transportation.
• Integrated legal support in transactions whose subject matters are means of transportation (railway rolling stock, aircrafts, sea vessels, motor cars and pipelines).
• Legal expert review of shipping contracts, vessel chartering contracts, cargo insurance contracts, vessel insurance contracts, third party liability insurance contracts and other legal instruments.
• Legal assistance in the procedure of acquiring the right to fly the Kazakhstan flag for sea vessels.
• Legal support in the procedure of sea vessels registration in the Kazakh registers of vessels, and aircraft registration.
• Obtainment of licenses for all types of merchant shipping activities.
• Obtainment of permits for foreign vessels coastal navigation.
• Legal support in M&A transactions, including due diligence of target transportation companies.