C1.4.i. What is the system of protection against monetary loss that is required of private seafarer recruitment and placement services?

Standard A1.4, paragraph 5 of the MLC, 2006 requires countries to regulate any private seafarer recruitment and placement services that may be operating in their territory. One such requirement is that the countries concerned have to ensure (Standard A1.4, paragraph 5(c)(vi)) that any such services establish a system of protection, by way of insurance or an equivalent appropriate measure, to compensate seafarers for monetary loss that they may incur as a result of the failure of a recruitment and placement service or the relevant shipowner under the seafarers’ employment agreement to meet its obligations to them.

The obligation on the ratifying country is not to provide this system of protection but rather, in the system that it adopts (pursuant to Standard A1.4, paragraph 2), to regulate these services through laws or regulations or other measures. The MLC, 2006 does not specify the form of this system, other than referring to insurance or an equivalent measure. The term “monetary loss” is not defined and the Convention does not specify the scope of that term, which covers financial loss suffered.

Recruitment and placement