Company: ASC
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001558370-25-002500
Chunk: 85

Company: Ardmore Shipping Corp
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 85
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 The USCG and European Union authorities prohibit vessels not in compliance with the ISM Code by applicable deadlines from trading in U. S. and European Union ports, respectively. As of the date of this Annual Report, each of our vessels is ISM Code certified. However, there can be no assurance that such certificates will be maintained in the future. The IMO continues to review and introduce new regulations.

The U. S. Oil Pollution Act of 1990 and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act

The U. S. Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (“ OPA”) established an extensive regulatory and liability regime for the protection and cleanup of the environment from oil spills. OPA affects all “owners and operators” whose vessels trade or operate within the U. S., its territories and possessions or whose vessels operate in U. S. waters, which includes the U. S.’s territorial sea and its 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone around the U. S. The U. S. has also enacted the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (“ CERCLA”), which applies to the discharge of hazardous substances other than oil, except in limited circumstances, whether on land or at sea.

OPA and CERCLA both define “owner and operator” in the case of a vessel as any person owning, operating or chartering by demise, the vessel. Both OPA and CERCLA impact our operations.

Table of Contents

Under OPA, vessel owners and operators are “responsible parties” and are jointly, severally and strictly liable (unless the spill results solely from the act or omission of a third party, an act of God or an act of war) for all containment and clean-up costs and other damages arising from discharges or threatened discharges of oil from their vessels, including bunkers (fuel). OPA defines these other damages broadly to include:

  (1)      injury to, destruction or loss of, or loss of use of, natural resources and related assessment costs;  

  (2)      injury to, or economic losses resulting from, the destruction of real and personal property;  

  (3)      loss of subsistence use of natural resources that are injured, destroyed or lost;  

  (4)      net loss of taxes, royalties, rents, fees or net profit revenues resulting from injury, destruction or loss of real or personal property, or natural resources;  

  (5)      lost profits or impairment of earning capacity due to injury, destruction or loss of