On the morning of September 6, Guangdong Maritime Trial Communication and Coordination Conference of 2019 was successfully held at the 11th floor of Nanzhou court building of GZMC. More than 60 people attended the conference, they were Deputy Chief Judge Rao Qing of Civil Adjudication Tribunal NO.4 of Guangdong Higher People’s Court, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and President Ye Liudong, Members of the Party Leadership, judges and judge assistants of GZMC and maritime trial team of Higher People’s Court.

Participants opened a heated discussion on ten knotty issues which collected and selected by the maritime trial center of GZMC, some of which were “Whether the typhoon-induced inwelling is belonged to force majeure concerning the given goods damage in the port during warranty period of the carrier, and the exemption clauses are applicable to the carrier as stipulated in Maritime Law”, “The return of delivery package charge”, “Carriers release goods with the L/G instead of an original B/L”, “Cases, concerning injuries and deaths caused by ship collision at sea, are applicable to Tort Liability Law because both the two ships are below tonnage standard of Maritime Law. Should the two ship owners take joint liability or shared liability under such circumstance”, “In domestic waterway freight transport, if the actual carriercaused damage of goods, should carriers get the compensation for the damage on the premise of compensating the loss tothe actual carriers”, “Disputes involving cruises”. Finally, they reached some consensus and formed the majority and minority opinions on some issues.

Rao reported maritime case trial in 2018 of Higher People’s Court in the conference, from which we can see that maritime cases of first instance were with good quality and maintaining a lower retrial rate, which means the communication and coordination mechanism of maritime trial established by the two courts has achieved remarkableoutcomes in unifying the adjudication determination and improving the quality and efficiency of trial in provincial maritime.

Ye said that during the conference, judges of the two courts were actively discussed, expressed opinions, sparked contend, enlighten of wisdom and helped each other to get improvement, which is beneficial to the formation of judicial consensus and the unification of adjudication determination. It is significant and honorable to do well in maritime trial. He hopes that maritime judges would focus on the general thought of quality strategy of GZMC, further transform their concepts and the mode of thinking and make new efforts to promote maritime trial into a new level.