• Kidnapped: life as a Somali pirate hostage, by Colin Freeman, is published by Monday Books

The launch of BIMCOs GUARDCON – the standard contract for the employment of security guards on vessels has been roundly welcomed across the shipping industry and maritime security sector.

The launch of BIMCOs GUARDCON – the standard contract for the employment of security guards on vessels has been roundly welcomed across the shipping industry and maritime security sector.
The Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI) – an organisation which represents over 140 international private maritime security companies, believes that GUARDCON provides much needed clarity on a range of key issues such as the roles and responsibilities of parties, team composition, actual duties and clarification on areas such as insurance, outsourcing and employment.
A SAMI spokesperson added, “We see that GUARDCON and the SAMI Standard sit hand in glove with each other. While the need for security remains, the provision of a joined up approach to the legal, compliance and quality issues offers the shipping industry a potent twin track approach to providing legal surety and excellence of service.”
The SAMI programme provides the mechanism to actually check and verify that the security contractor is able to provide as per the contractual agreement.
Peter Cook, Director of SAMI said, “The proliferation of private maritime security companies and the increase of shipowners contracting to use them have prompted a need for standardisation and clarification. The fact that this standard contract now exists in parallel to SAMI’s international mechanism to check and enforce compliance, affords shipowners and insurers the reassurance they have been seeking for so long.”
GUARDCON is the product of much hard work within the shipping industry, and it is something which is welcomed by maritime security providers. Indeed the contract is seen as a reflection of the importance and significance of the role that private maritime security is providing in the piracy High Risk Area. There has been a rise in the number of occasions in which an armed defensive response has protected vessels from pirate attack, and increasingly the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) reports state that the return of fire from onboard armed security team has resulted in pirates aborting their attacks.