An investor-focused event held every year in New York, the most influential C-level executives belonging to U.S. and foreign listed shipping companies, as well as analysts, financiers, and market experts, will come together to discuss and examine the macroeconomic issues that are shaping and transforming international shipping today. The forum will provide a comprehensive review and outlook on the various shipping markets—container, dry bulk, tanker, and offshore drilling—made more timely and relevant by the annual release of companies’ performance results. It will also assess the critical issues affecting the shipping industry: bank financing, access to the capital markets, alternative forms of financing, restructuring, bankruptcy, investment opportunities in shipping today, and ship recycling.

Capital Link’s Shipping Forums are well-known for their high quality and effectiveness. They are unique marketing and networking events attended by a large and high caliber audience of shipping industry executives, such as owners, commercial and investment bankers, media, and a wide range of other industry participants. For more information about Capital Link’s events, visit forums.capitallink.com.

Service of documents is an important element of the court process.  If a claimant can show that his claim has been properly served on a defendant then the claim can continue.  If the defendant fails to respond to the claim then the claimant can apply to the Court to enter judgement in default.  This is the case even if the defendant never actually received the court papers.

This new ruling means that, in certain circumstances, a claimant can argue that good service has been effected if the papers were sent to the defendant via Facebook.  In order to rely on Facebook service, the claimant must be able to show that the account in question actually belongs to the defendant and that the account is checked regularly.

This decision has several consequences.

Previously, proceedings could be properly deemed served at a defendant’s last known address, and therefore judgement could be entered against a person who has since moved from that address without their knowledge that a claim had even been issued.  Now, if the papers are served by Facebook, the defendant will become aware of the claim when he next checks his account.

This new ruling will also help to prevent defendants from avoiding service.  It is possible for a defendant to challenge service of court documents at certain addresses, and some slippery defendants can try to mislead the court in this regard.  However, if permission is given to serve the papers via Facebook then this will help to eliminate this means of frustrating the legitimate claims process.

The courts have been accused of failing to keep up with technological advances.  For example, the recent highly publicised cases concerning a footballer seeking to an order that his superinjunction may remain in place after his identity had been revealed on Twitter saw the Court criticised as out of touch.

However, this recent decision shows that the Court is indeed capable of moving with the times and not as isolated as some would portray it.  The ruling make it clear that the Court is willing to amend the existing rules of procedure to take into account developments in technology, and it will be interesting to see how case law will develop in this area.

Andrew Grant is part of Ballantyne Grant Litigation Solicitors who provide a free legal advice service to IMASMA members. Click here to visit their website.

If you aren’t a Google + user and you’re asking (or being asked) the question ‘should I be building a Google + page for my brand (s) and company‘ then spend a useful half an hour reading this goldmine of information ‘Google+: The Complete Guide’ put together by Mashable.

We think this is the most concise and useful guide to Google + available, current as at January 2012.  It includes an introduction to the service, the key features and the most crucial things you need to understand about using it. Conveyed using pictures and videos as well as commentary and text it also has links out to more detailed information.

If your maritime company has created a Google + page or is already embracing it as part of your digital strategy then please let us know via email. We’d be very interested to feature you on the site.

Greek shipping remains important to the maritime economy, constituting approximately 20 percent of the world’s shipping fleet.  In spite of the volatile markets and economic downturn, Greek shipping professionals have consistently adapted to changing conditions, seeking out growth and opportunity rather than yielding to their circumstances.  In fact in 2011 alone, Greek shipowners placed orders for over $12 billion worth of new and refurbished ships, which is the highest among its industry competitors worldwide.

Capital Link will host the 3rd Annual Greek Shipping Forum in Athens on Wednesday, February 29, 2012.   This event will not only cover the latest developments and trends in international trade, dry bulk commodities, and the energy markets—framed against the broader backdrop of the global economy—but also review the various funding alternatives for raising capital among listed and private shipping companies.  Experts will additionally address effective investment strategies and risk management in today’s shipping industry.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

Capital Link invites institutional investors, analysts, bankers, financial advisors, financial media, and other qualified investors who are interested in enhancing their knowledge of shipping across all sectors.  With an average of roughly 900 participants each year, attendees can expect an informative networking forum connecting them to the shipping industry’s key players, including influential members in the financial community, such as commercial and investment banks.

Maritime companies are beginning to make the switch from print to digital customer newsletters and the smartest are already integrating their email marketing with their website and social media channels. A clear email marketing strategy coupled with engaging content can be very successful – but if your company hasn’t embarked on an email campaign before then understanding the metrics your email service provider throws back at you can be the first hurdle.

How do you know how successful your campaign has been? What’s the difference between a hard and soft bounce and how do these statistics help you to target your sales efforts? Email Service Provider Sign-up.to has produced a ‘Complete Guide to Email Analytics’ ebook which you can download free here. You can also visit their website for more resources.

Source: Getty Images/AFP

How well has Carnival responded to the Concordia disaster? When the Carnival Splendor caught fire in 2010 with 4,500 people aboard, stranding the vessel off Mexico they were broadly praised for their response but not this time.

Confusion over whether ‘sail-bys’ are standard practise, what some see as an unseemly and potentially dangerous rush to blame the disaster in its entirety on Captain Schettino and accusations of inconsistencies in the compensation payments to different classes of passenger are all damaging the Costa and ultimately the Carnival brand. Should the Cruise industry have been more vocal and proactive in defending what is a very safe way to sail? Are PR company Burston Marsteller steering the right course for the brand?

British PR Week explored these issues in their videocast below. Let us know if you agree with their guests by posting a comment below and take the IMASMA poll on the right sidebar.

This latest campaign from HS Marine Propulsion has all the wit and high production values you’d expect from an expensive consumer product, but loses nothing of the key message and promise of the product. You can view a high-resolution version here.

We’re interested to know your views on where maritime brands should be heading so post a comment.

For huge maritime organisations like the navies of the world social media presents both a great opportunity and a huge challenge. For the Royal Australian Navy the approach is to educate. For any company reflecting on their own response to the use of social media within their organisation, the RAN’s latest video is worth a watch.

Is it acceptable to have staff in your company treating your customers with contempt in the office even when they’re civil to their faces, or should customers which are that universally disliked be jettisoned as corrosive to the organisation as a whole?

In an interesting article Shrage asks ‘…what does healthy criticism and constructive efforts to rehabilitate difficult clients look like? How are you facilitating client critiques that don’t simply allow frustrations to vent but encourage proactive solutions to emerge?’ With an example of how one software company rose to the challenge of a really difficult client, you can read the article here.

Everyone knows that LinkedIn profiles are great online resumes, but did you know they can also be terrific sales lead generation engines? Your sales team is already chock full of content — sales presentations, data sheets, case studies and existing customer references. There’s no reason why LinkedIn can’t be an online, findable and social extension of this. Indeed, LinkedIn is a portal to your company’s goods or services, and each sales rep with a LinkedIn profile is an online ambassador to a closed deal.

At the same time, buyers and the process of buying has changed significantly in the past few years, especially in the B2B sector, where the sales cycle is longer and more complicated. Gone are the days when buyers turned to sales people to educate them on every aspect of a good or service. According to Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch and author of Lead Generation for the Complex Sale, up to 95% of qualified prospects looking at a company’s website are there to research and are not yet ready to talk with a sales rep, but an overwhelming majority of them intend to make an eventual purchase from you (or your competitors).

Think of your sales team as an army of lead-generating and nurturing soldiers on LinkedIn. If today’s potential customer is going to take on a lot of self-research before being ready for sales outreach, the more information your team can make available, findable and sharable, the better. LinkedIn apps can help. So sales managers, listen up: Here are 5 LinkedIn applications no sales team should go without.

For the full article visit the Mashable site by clicking here.