• sugar_in_your_tea
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    1 month ago

    They also lose any claim to the cargo as well if they bankrupt the ship. It’s the same idea as buying an umbrella insurance policy, if you suffer a major loss, you lose the asset, but you don’t lose anything else.

    But I agree, we should probably have tighter standards on what qualifies for liability protection, as well as a record of past abuse of liability protection to prevent future abuse (i.e. your LLC application would be denied if you’ve bankrupted too many prior companies). So we should be stopping this at the source, not retroactively removing the liability protections because the government made a stupid contract.

    • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      If the cargo is a few million barrels of oil now the problem of the government who’s shores it threatens… you don’t really care do you?

      • sugar_in_your_tea
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        1 month ago

        That would be on the company’s insurance to cover, and shipping companies should be absolutely required to carry insurance for things like oil spills.

        • RubberDuck@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          Sure… mostly they do… but then captains are drunk, maintenance is poor and the insurance declines to pay… or drags that out through court for 2 decades… meanwhile governments have to foot the bill. The examples are endless unfortunately.