ABSTRACT
The aim of the paper here presented is to study the legal nature of shipping brokerage contract as one of characteristic contracts regulated by norms of Private International Maritime Law. Firstly, the history of contract’s national and international legal regulation has been briefly presented. After that a special attention has been paid to the contract formation and the rights and obligations of the parties. Important place in this research has been taken on determination of shipping brokerage types. Two types of shipping brokerage have been mostly examined, and namely – the brokerage in the freight of vessels, and the brokerage in the vessel’s sale. In Bulgarian national legislation, specially, in Trade Shipping Code the different types of shipping services have been regulated, though quite meagerly. The international legal regulation has been also analyzed, in the ambitious aim to clarify the legal nature of the international sources. Finally some conclusions have been made and some propositions to improve the national and international legal regulation of shipping brokerage have been presented.
