Memorandum of Understanding with the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs

On Tuesday, 29 October 2024, the NKUA’s School of Law (at the initiative of the Postgraduate Programme ‘Business Law’, specialization ‘Maritime Law’) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the International Group of Protection & Indemnity Clubs. This International Group comprises the 12 most important Mutual Insurance Associations (P&I Clubs), which provide third-party liability insurance to shipowners of over 90% of the world’s ocean-going tonnage (any type and size of vessel). The P&I Clubs play a vital role in the maritime cluster by coordinating the response to—and management of—maritime casualties. In addition, the Group, through its Education Committee, works to improve training and learning on issues related to the activities and role of the P&I Clubs in particular and the fields of marine insurance and International Maritime Law in general. Creating synergies with well-established academic Institutions is a key tool for putting the above into practice.

The NKUA’s School of Law offers—for the 10^th consecutive year—a specialized and accredited Postgraduate Programme in Maritime Law (as part of the LLM in Business Law), with internationally focused content and the participation of experts from abroad. Some 200 lawyers, judges, business executives, and Hellenic Coastguard officers have already graduated from it and hold positions in the public and private sectors, thus strengthening expertise in a highly competitive area. The synergy between the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the International Group of Protection and Indemnity Clubs is remarkable, welcome, symbolic, and, at the same time, essential. It aims to create a high degree of academic and educational collaboration, which will involve, among other things, exchanges of specialized knowledge and information, mobility through lectures and training in the areas of International Maritime and Insurance Law, demonstrating how the rules are applied in practice, sharing the P&I Clubs’ wealth of experience, and mutually guaranteeing the ability to enroll participants in one another’s educational programmes.

Signing the MoU, on the part of the NKUA’s School of Law, was the Dean, Professor Konstantinos Christodoulou, while on the part of IG was Mr Andrew Dyer (member of the Education Committee, American P&I Club), representing IG’s President, Mr Nick Shaw. Also present at the occasion were several faculty members who have been teaching at the Postgraduate Programme in Business Law over the years and, obviously, representatives from numerous P&I Clubs across the world (Gard, West, NorthStandard, Britannia, Skuld, Shipowners, London, Swedish P&I Clubs). Implementation started immediately with the first lecture entitled ‘Intro to P&I and IG’ delivered by Ms Kleia Kokkini (Gard P&I), Mr George Hartofylis (West P&I), and Mr Andrew Dyer within the context of the postgraduate course.