Chartering and maritime transport

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Maritime transport is the physical link in the trading chain. Geneva, a city with no access to the sea, nevertheless houses one of the world’s principal communities of charterers, shipbrokers and vessel operators. The Fondation Genève Place Financière cites ship chartering among the activities that form, together with finance, a unique cluster.¹ The world’s largest conference on the maritime transport of commodities, Geneva Dry, is held in Geneva.²

The large trading houses have chartering departments that hire vessels for a voyage or for a period, negotiate freight rates and manage port operations. The president of Suissenégoce elected in January 2024, Sébastien Landerretche, heads the global ship chartering of a large agricultural trader, which illustrates the link between trading and transport.³ Shipowners and fleet operators are also established in Geneva, some of them among the largest in the world.⁴

Chartering exposes a trader to particular risks: volatility of freight rates, maritime incidents, piracy, sanctions targeting vessels or shipowners, and the growing environmental requirements imposed on shipping. Geneva’s charterers work with marine insurers, protection and indemnity clubs, specialist lawyers and port authorities throughout the world.

Component	Function	Players cited
Financing	credit secured on the commodities	BNP Paribas, ING, Crédit Agricole, BCGE, UBS, formerly Credit Suisse
Inspection	certification of quantity and quality	Société générale de surveillance
Chartering	maritime transport, broking, fleet management	traders’ departments, brokers, shipowners
Insurance	cover for cargoes, political and credit risks	specialist insurers and brokers
Law	contracts, compliance, arbitration	law firms, Swiss Arbitration Centre
Training and representation	skills, defence of interests	University of Geneva, Suissenégoce

Notes

Fondation Genève Place Financière, cited above. ↩
“Le négoce des matières premières reste globalement stable en Suisse”, swissinfo.ch, 12 August 2025. ↩
swissinfo.ch, 12 August 2025, cited above. ↩
Wikipedia (en), article “Mediterranean Shipping Company”: company founded in Naples in 1970 by Gianluigi Aponte and Rafaela Aponte-Diamant; “In 1978, the headquarters was established in Geneva, Switzerland”; the world’s largest container shipowner since 6 January 2022, ahead of Maersk; around 900 vessels and 7 million TEU in September 2025, 21.2 per cent of world capacity, 524 offices in 155 countries, more than 200,000 employees; company owned by the Aponte-Diamant family. ↩

For general information only. This article does not constitute legal or tax advice, does not replace advice on an individual case and creates no lawyer-client relationship. It reflects the legal position as of September 2025.

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Dr Alexander Ressos, TEP

Rechtsanwalt/Attorney-at-Law

I am a Swiss attorney-at-law and also admitted as a solicitor in Hong Kong and in England & Wales, with almost 25 years of experience.

Together with my multilingual team, including Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Ukrainian and French native speakers, I advise companies and their owners from around the world on the full range of banking, corporate, commercial and tax law matters in Switzerland, including international tax planning, fiduciary services, and legal family office services including immigration & relocation or real estate investments. My practice has a particular focus on clients from growth and frontier markets in Greater China, Central Asia and the Caucasus, the rest of Asia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, and I equally advise clients from Europe and North America. Through an affiliated Swiss trust company, we also take care of the incorporation and ongoing administration of their companies and other structures, including accounting, tax returns and corporate secretarial services, and I serve as a professional director where required. With the support of a network of first-class cooperation partners, I also implement solutions worldwide.

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Chartering and maritime transport

Notes

Setting up or expanding in Switzerland?