No, please email [email protected] to advise of your new details. We shall check these details against Companies House and update the website signatory listing accordingly.
LOGIC can provide you with a certified copy Deed of Adherence at cost from £250.00 + VAT. This covers the cost of recovering the document from storage and administrative costs.
The prevailing consensus in the industry was that the scheme should apply to personal injury, property damage and consequential losses only. Other areas of risk such as pollution were considered, but were ultimately discounted. One of the main reasons for having a mutual hold harmless arrangement in respect of a signatory’s own property, personnel and consequential loss is that the signatory is best placed to assess the value at risk and, if required, make the appropriate insurance arrangements. Pollution risks are less quantifiable and hence would have created a complication to the IMHH provisions which was not widely welcomed.
The general industry view was that extending the IMHH to cover onshore activities as well as offshore activities could have inadvertently led to the application of the IMHH in circumstances where it was not intended (e.g. motor vehicle accidents) and, as such, in order to avoid any ambiguity it was limited to offshore activities only. With regard to specific projects or contracts undertaken by a signatory which involve both (for example onshore fabrication and offshore hook up/construction), the IMHH will apply between that signatory and all other signatories in relation to the offshore element only. In the event that two or more signatories wanted to enter into a separate mutual hold harmless agreement between themselves in order to cover onshore risks they would, of course, be free to do so.
The individual companies (within a group of companies) that are involved in offshore activities should each sign the IMHH Deed in their own right. Although the indemnities in Clause 2.1 are given in respect of the Personnel, Property and Consequential Loss of the Indemnifying Signatory or any other members of its Group, because the contracts for the various work and services are signed by the individual service companies, it is required for the sake of greater visibility and legal certainty that those companies that have entered such contracts should also sign their own Deeds of Adherence. Company structures and ownership change, but if the companies joining the Scheme are the same as the companies holding contracts there is less risk of such organisational and ownership changes affecting the integrity of the Scheme.
Insurers have been supportive of the Scheme, but have not indicated that there will be any immediate effect on premiums. Looking at the situation long term, of course, any source of cost savings can only be good for the industry as a whole and therefore the reduced number of inter-contractor claims which will inevitably result from the Scheme will in turn lead to reduced costs to insurers and, in theory at least, should result in lower premium costs.
There is no bar against operators signing the Deed, although at this stage we would not expect them to. The Deed as currently drafted is not intended for execution by operators, so if the IMHH proceeds to a next stage in which operators were to participate, some re-drafting would be required. On any given offshore installation we would expect that the operator would have contracts in place with all its contractors anyway.
The Scheme is open to everyone who is likely to work offshore and all offshore contractors are encouraged to sign up to it. It would, however, be inappropriate for suppliers to sign up to the Scheme unless they are likely to be actually going offshore.
All contractors working offshore on the UKCS are encouraged to sign up to the IMHH Scheme as it designed to benefit any that are working in that area. The accepted methods of signing by non-UK companies may vary, of course, depending on the country of incorporation of the company concerned. Guidance in this respect is given on the Instructions for Signing issued with the Deed of Adherence.
