Join the AIJA double seminar organised by the Transport Law and International Arbitration Commissions together with the Public Procurement Law Interest Group.

The seminar will be split in a joint seminar of Transport Law and Arbitration on ‘Ever given, never given: Shipping, Supply Chain and Arbitration’ and a public procurement seminar on Public Procurement – Trends and Future. All to take place in Athens, Greece from 14 to 16 September 2023

The Transport/Arbitration seminar will discuss all aspects of a ship’s life cycle, from sale and shipbuilding to its use as a transport mode. In such context many disputes may arise including those related to the supply chain disruptions. International arbitration remains the most convenient method to resolve such disputes in an efficient way resulting in a binding award enforceable all around the world and even more so in Europe, following Brexit.

Greece ranks as the world’s largest ship owning nation, it has ratified the 1958 New York Convention and in early 2023 has radically updated both its international commercial arbitration law and its private maritime law. Piraeus, Greece’s main port, is home not only to over 600 ship management companies managing from 1-2 vessels to up to very large fleets with over 25 vessels, but also to several shipping service providers such as financial institutions, insurance companies, accounting firms, law firms etc. The country’s strategic location at the crossroads of Europe, Asia and Africa makes it a vital hub for international trade, transport and shipping. In these circumstances, Athens is the perfect location to discuss these topics also in relation to climate change, the new focus on sustainability and the digital transformation and attract speakers and attendees from several industries. 

The Piraeus port following its privatisation in just a few years has become the fourth largest port in Europe with continuously improving economic performance. This shows that its privatisation has produced hopeful results and also explains why public procurement is a highly competitive industry in the Greek market. This combined with the recent global conditions with the refugee crisis first, then with COVID and lately with the Russian aggression against Ukraine make a Public Procurement seminar in Athens more relevant than ever. During the seminar, lawyers from around the world will identify trends and future of public procurement law that is emerging as a result of the experiences from the past years, such as increased life cycle perspective on public buying. This seminar aims to give public procurement law practitioners a unique overview of how different jurisdictions approached the somewhat comparable but also distinctively different challenges of each crisis.