| Friday 18 September |
| Chris Douglas Partner Minter Ellison, Queensland Chris Douglas practises in the area of international maritime law advising on shipping and chartering arrangements as well as resolution of disputes arising out of those arrangements. Chris’ skills in these areas have been recognised by invitations to guest lecture in the area of shipping law and international arbitration at the University of Queensland. Chris regularly advises on international trading terms and sale agreements, including the application of Incoterms, letters of credit and the interaction between trading agreements and the related shipping arrangements. Chris has also advised on multimodal transport arrangements including the interaction of the various underlying agreements for carriage.
In addition to trade related advice, Chris is experienced in the drafting of charter party agreements, including time charters, voyage charters, demise charters and bareboat charters and in Admiralty proceedings against vessels in numerous jurisdictions.
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| Phil Griffin Director London Offshore Consultants (LOC), Perth Captain Phil Griffin is the Director - Marine for LOC’s Australian offices, and is based in Perth. He provides marine specialist support to internal and external clients in Shipping & Salvage, Marine Assurance & Risk, and Marine Warranty services. Phil has an extensive background in deep-sea trades, the offshore industry, and in marine & marine logistics management. He provides Marine Assurance/Loss Prevention leadership in the Australasian maritime markets, and works to develop LOC’s relationships with all sectors of the maritime industry.
Phil may be called upon in all areas of marine consultancy & survey for the offshore and general shipping industries, which includes issues & operations associated with MODUs, support vessels, ocean towing, fleet & base management, specialist & general trading vessel voyages.
He has been engaged as an expert witness and marine expert in a number of matters, some moving towards court or arbitration.
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| 0 | Matthew Harvey President MLAANZ |
| Stuart Hetherington Partner Colin Biggers & Paisley, Sydney Stuart Hetherington is a partner of Colin Biggers & Paisley, President of the Comité Maritime International and a former President of MLAANZ. He is the author of Annotated Admiralty legislation and co-author of the Laws of Australia text on admiralty. He writes and lectures frequently on Transport related issues. He was the winner of the Lloyds List-DCN Maritime Services Award in 2010. | |
| John Kavanagh Principal Kavanagh Law, Queensland John Kavanagh, the Principal of Kavanagh Law, has enjoyed a diverse career as a mariner, solicitor, and senior executive in the Queensland Government. John is a qualified Master Mariner (Master Unlimited – Australian Maritime Safety Authority) and Legal Practitioner (Queensland and High Court of Australia). As a master mariner, John has served in all ranks up to and including Master in a wide variety of ship types, including LNG Tankers, Crude Oil Tankers, Chemical Tankers, and Bulk Carriers. John is also experienced in operating Trailer Suction Hopper Dredges and Split Hopper Barges on some of the biggest dredging projects in Australia, including the Wheatstone LNG project in WA and the Ichthys LNG project in Darwin. As a maritime lawyer, John has worked in a large commercial law firm and also as a senior executive at Maritime Safety Queensland. John’s experience includes maritime safety and marine pollution compliance, as well as managing large projects, such as the extension of ReefVTS following the Shen Neng 1 grounding in 2010. John also has management experience as a harbour master and VTS manager. John is active as an officer in the Royal Australian Navy Reserve, working in both the Legal and Maritime Trade Operations Branches. | |
| Clinton McKenzie General Counsel Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) Clinton McKenzie joined the Australian Maritime Safety Authority in January 2011 and is now the Authority’s General Counsel. His primary focus over the last few years has been implementing and administering the new Navigation Act and National Law for domestic commercial vessels. Prior to joining AMSA, Clinton was a partner of DLA Phillips Fox and a member of DLA Phillips Fox's government law team. Prior to joining DLA Phillips Fox, Clinton was Legal Counsel in the Civil Aviation Safety Authority and, for one year, CASA’s General Manager of General Aviation Operations. Prior to joining the Civil Aviation Safety Authority, Clinton served in the Australian Defence Force. | |
| Ashwin Nair Solicitor Cocks Macnish, Perth Ashwin Nair is a solicitor at Cocks Macnish, in Perth, Western Australia. His practice focuses on shipping, insurance (general and marine), and international trade. His work includes contentious and non-contentious matters and casualty response (as P&I correspondent). He advises clients in a range of sectors including maritime transport, commodities, insurance, offshore oil and gas, livestock export, and commercial fishing. He also advises on regulatory and risk management matters within these sectors. | |
| Peter Parolo Executive Director, Ports and Maritime Department of Transport, WA Peter Parolo is a Fellow of CPA Australia and has worked in the public sector for over 15 years with Department of Water and Department of Justice, and over 15 years working in the private sector in mining, manufacturing and services. Peter has been a CFO, Company Secretary and Director in a range of companies and public sector organisations. He has been with the Department of Transport for the last two years and has been actively engaged in a number of port reform issues, such as the ports governance review, state ports strategy and financial performance and funding options for ports work. | |
| John Riding Director Marico Marine, New Zealand John Riding is the Managing Director of MARICO Marine, which has offices in Southampton, England and Wellington, NZ. He initially spent 12 years at sea, followed by Masters’ Degree at Liverpool University. After a period working in the marine casualty market he worked for the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), developing the marine risk system, Formal Safety Assessment (FSA), now used by IMO. After leaving MCA, he applied this new science to ports, harbours and terminals, where Marico developed a specialism for assessment of port and harbour risk. The first was in the aftermath of a serious tanker grounding in Wales (1996). The growing reputation of Marico quality brought John and his team a large number of port marine risk assessment commissions under the UK Port Marine Safety Code. This was repeated in New Zealand, where a second office was introduced in 2004. Since then, John has worked with Government Regulators, Port and Harbour authorities and port companies worldwide. This includes expert witness experience associated with large port and harbour litigation. | |
| Captain David Shennan Harbour Master Port of Portland, Victoria Captain David Shennan is Harbour Master / Marine Manager at Port of Portland, Victoria. It is his third port in this role. He is also principal of North & Trew Marine Consultancy. Educated in the UK & Jamaica, he ran away to sea at the age of 17 to join the Royal Fleet Auxiliary (1969-1988), serving world-wide on a variety of vessel types including replenishment tankers, general cargo, logistic support, ammunition, helicopter support and landing ships as Royal Naval fleet navigator, helicopter controller and flight deck officer. He was a marine pilot for ten years in Portsmouth, and part-time senior lecturer at Warsash Maritime College, instructing in radar, pilotage, ARPA and manned-model shiphandling. He was pilotage manager at Harwich Haven Authority (HHA) from 1998–2000, adding Harbour Master to the role in 2000. He served as one of the two executive board members, and Deputy Chief Executive, until leaving to join PoMC in 2008. David has managed the marine side of a trust port, a government-owned port and a commercial port. He is passionate about sharing these lessons and improving the integration of port services, and reducing marine navigational accidents and incidents – which he has achieved in all his ports. | |
| Professor Erika Techera Dean of the Law School University of WA Professor Erika Techera is Dean of Law at the University of Western Australia. Erika is an international and comparative environmental lawyer whose research focuses on the marine environment. She is the author of over 50 publications exploring diverse areas including legal frameworks for marine protected areas, marine spatial planning, oceans governance, marine pollution, fisheries regulation, and maritime heritage law. She currently holds an ARC Discovery Project grant (with Professor Natalie Klein) examining the international governance of sharks. Her PhD thesis explored the hybridisation of customary law and state-based legislation for marine environmental management in the Pacific island States. Prior to becoming an academic Erika practised as a barrister in Sydney, and subsequently was appointed Director of the Centre for International & Environmental Law and Co-Director of the Centre for Climate Futures at Macquarie University. Erika is a member of the UWA Oceans Institute, the Oceans Science Council of Australia and the Legal Profession Futures’ Committee at the Law Council of Australia. Erika joined UWA in 2012 and is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. | |
| Maurice Thompson Partner Clyde & Co., Melbourne Maurice Thomspon heads Clyde & Co’s Australian maritime and commodities practice and has 22 years’ experience advising clients in the shipping, ports, aviation, commodities, resources & mining and oil & gas industries domestically and internationally. In the trade and commodities space, Maurice has represented major global commodity trading houses, worldwide mining and oil majors and Australian bulk handlers and port owners and operators in respect of hard, soft and oil related commodity and shipping matters. He has drafted many of the commercial legal documents and contracts used by leading domestic and international market participants in both the hard and soft commodity trades, and has acted in a large number of significant domestic and international commodity and shipping related arbitrations and court proceedings.
From a shipping perspective, Maurice acts for vessel owners, operators, charterers and their P&I, FD&D and H&M underwriters, cargo interests and port owners and operators in domestic and international litigation and arbitration in a full range of maritime law disputes. His non-contentious work includes drafting international sales contracts, off-take agreements, storage & handling agreements, charterparties and COAs.
He regularly acts for clients with interests in, or disputes arising out of, offshore oil & gas projects in the JPDA in the Timor Sea, Ichthys, Wheatstone, Gorgon, Kitan, Bayu-Undan, Greater Sunrise and the Australian North West Shelf. He has been on the Emergency Oil Spill Response Team as principal external legal counsel for oil & gas majors BHPB, Saudi Aramco and Vela International Marine Limited.
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| Michael Utsler Chief Operations Officer Woodside, Perth Michael Utsler has more than 35 years’ global experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. Over his career, he has held a wide range of technical, managerial and executive roles covering all aspects of the upstream industry from Exploration, Developments, Operations and the commercialisation of assets and their products. He joined Woodside in 2013 as Chief Operations Officer and is now responsible for Woodside’s global logistics, drilling, production, HSEQ and Security and Crisis Management. Michael began his career with Amoco in 1978 working throughout the western and central US. He then transferred to an international assignment first in Exploration New Ventures and then to Cairo, Egypt as Production Optimisation Manager for the joint Amoco-EGPC enterprise. On returning to the United States, he held numerous senior management roles in the Gulf of Mexico Shelf and Deepwater Operations for Amoco. Following the merger of BP and Amoco and subsequently Arco, Michael was charged with leading the Gulf of Mexico Shelf integration, working across a range of roles. In 2001 he moved to the United Kingdom to manage the Southern North Sea and Central North Sea operations. Michael was appointed BP’s North Sea Technical Director, a position he held until 2006. Following this, he was transferred to Alaska as Senior Vice President for BP’s Greater Prudhoe Bay Operations. Prior to joining Woodside, Michael held the position of President for the BP-Gulf Coast restoration organisation, leading the Deepwater Horizon response efforts from April of 2010 through to December, 2013. | |
| Gavin Vallely Managing Partner Holman Fenwick Willan, Melbourne Gavin Vallely has more than 25 years experience advising on contentious and non-contentious matters concerning offshore oil & gas installations, commercial shipping and international trade. His work in the oil & gas and shipping sectors includes advising on all forms of charterparties (including rigs and OSVs), ship/offshore installation sale & purchase and construction, Australian regulatory schemes (including HSE, coastal shipping and Customs) and port/terminal operations. He has acted for the operators of offshore installations, vessels and terminals in respect of numerous casualty and pollution incidents, managing the response to investigations by governmental authorities and the defence of any related criminal and civil proceedings. He has also acted in several major claims arising from offshore offtake operations as well as P&I claims in respect of damage to cargo (e.g. contamination of petroleum products, chemicals, fertiliser and grain cargoes), berth damage, ITF boycotts, OH&S prosecutions and Port State Control issues.
Gavin also has extensive experience advising on State and Federal regulatory & taxation matters arising from the trading foreign flagged tonnage on the Australian coast, including the coastal shipping reform legislation introduced by the previous the Federal Government and the implications of the proposed winding back of that scheme. He also advises trading companies and banks in respect of their commodities contracts and related letter of credit/payment enforcement issues.
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| Mike Wilson Marine Engineer - Director TMC Marine, Melbourne Mike Wilson, a Marine Engineer with a First Class Certificate of Competency, joined TMC in June 2014. Prior to this he had almost 20 years seagoing experience sailing in all ranks up to and including Chief Engineer. Mike has sailed on a variety of vessels, including Bulk Carriers, RO/RO, OSV’s and Refrigerated Cargo vessels. Since moving ashore in 1994 Mike has gained experience in many aspects of vessel management, ship and machinery repair, conversion and new buildings and has held positions ranging from Project Engineer to Chief Technical Superintendent. During this time he has become familiar with other types of vessels and systems including Container ships, Self‐Discharging cement carrier, Coastal Tankers and General Cargo vessels, DP systems etc. He has particular experience in new building matters and is well versed in planning, monitoring quality control, problem resolution, installation and commissioning.
Mike is based in Melbourne and has been instructed in several matters of incident investigation, new build disputes, fire investigations and charter party breaches for owners, insurers and shipyards.
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