General Course Information
1.1 Course details
| Course code: | LLAW6330 & JDOC6330 |
| Course name: | Shipping Finance Law |
| Programme offered under: | LLM Programme / JD Programme |
| Semester: | June |
| Prerequisites / Co-requisites: | No |
| Credit point value: | 9 credits / 6 credits |
1.2 Course description
Ship finance is a form of project finance where the project is the building or purchase of the ship. The construction and sale of ships is dependent upon finance. Either the costs of construction or the price for purchase of ships require large sums to be raised from a financier, usually a major bank or groups of banks. The shipowners need to provide security to the financier(s) for the repayment of sums advanced.
This course examines the common loan and security structures employed in ship finance; as such it will draw upon foundational principles of contract and property and demonstrate how they are utilised within ship finance. This course focuses upon loan financing and leasing for the purchase of an existing ship and the construction of a new ship. The topics of this course include common issues in loan agreements to finance the purchase or construction of a ship; special issues affecting the financing of ship purchase and ship construction; financial issues in shipbuilding, purchase of a ship and ship registration; and securities issues in ship mortgage, secured lending and financial lease. Those contents will be taught in the context of English law and Hong Kong law. Relevant legislation and cases in other major jurisdictions will be closely examined.
1.3 Course teachers
| Name | E-mail address | Office | Consultation | |
| Course convenor | Liang Zhao | TBA | TBA | By email |
1.4 Course outline (for elective course)
| Pelase click the link here for the course outline (HKU Portal login required). |
Learning Outcomes
2.1 Course Learning Outcomes (CLOs) for this course
CLO 1 Describe and explain the common loan and security structures in ship finance.
CLO 2 Use relevant information about ship transactions to examine the law of ship finance.
CLO 3 Apply the knowledge of shipping and finance to solve the complexities of ship finance.
CLO 4 Demonstrate the impact of global and regional economic and political factors on ship finance.
2.2 LLM and JD Programme Learning Outcomes (PLOs)
Please refer to the following link:
LLM – https://course.law.hku.hk/llm-plo/
JD – https://course.law.hku.hk/jd-plo/
2.3 Programme Learning Outcomes to be achieved in this course
| PLO A | PLO B | PLO C | PLO D | PLO E | PLO F | |
| CLO 1 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 2 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 3 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| CLO 4 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Assessment(s)
3.1 Assessment Summary
| Assessment task | Weighting | Feedback method* | Course learning outcomes |
| Class participation | 10% | 5 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| Coursework | 90% | 1, 2 | 1, 2, 3, 4 |
| *Feedback method (to be determined by course teacher) | |
| 1 | A general course report to be disseminated through Moodle |
| 2 | Individual feedback to be disseminated by email / through Moodle |
| 3 | Individual review meeting upon appointment |
| 4 | Group review meeting |
| 5 | In-class verbal feedback |
3.2 Assessment Detail
To be advised by course convenor(s). See also Course Outline above.
3.3 Grading Criteria
Please refer to the following link: https://www.law.hku.hk/_files/law_programme_grade_descriptors.pdf
Learning Activities
4.1 Learning Activity Plan
| Seminar: | 3 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
| Private study time: | 9.5 hours / week for 12 teaching weeks |
Remarks: the normative student study load per credit unit is 25 ± 5 hours (ie. 150 ± 30 hours for a 6-credit course), which includes all learning activities and experiences within and outside of classroom, and any assessment task and examinations and associated preparations.
4.2 Details of Learning Activities
To be advised by course convenor(s).
Learning Resources
5.1 Resources
| Reading materials: | Reading materials are posted on Moodle |
| Core reading list: | TBA |
| Recommended reading list: | TBA |
5.2 Links
Please refer to the following link: http://www.law.hku.hk/course/learning-resources/