The Coast Guard and Marine Transportation Act of 2004 (the New Act) became law on August 9, 2004 in the United States. Section 703 of the New Act amends OPA90 by redefining owner or operator which is responsible party for all damages in connection with an oil pollution incident. It should be noted that this OPA90 amendment provides for exemption from oil pollution liability of certain financial lessors.

For more detail on this subject, please see the attached report which are prepared by the US law firm Holland & Knight. We deeply appreciate their generous courtesy to grant us to introduce their report to our Members in "Japan P&I News". We are preparing the Japanese translation separately which is available on our website. Please note that our translation is for the Japanese Members' convenience only and has not been checked by Holland & Knight.

You can see the US Congress Conference Report which carries the New Act by accessing the following address:http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi−dbname=108_cong_reports&docid=f:hr617.108.pdf

We hope that this will be help to you.