3. The quota-system for fishing vessels
Cargo vessels are often sold together with running charterparties, sometimes with the charterparty as an added value, or else as a price-reducing factor. For fishing vessels, by contrast, there is no parallel regarding contractual rights and obligations. There are, however, complicated administrative regulations on the right to fish, attached to the specific fishing vessel. An outline of these rules – to the extent necessary for describing the broker´s obligations – is required.
The use of a vessel for professional fishing requires a licence from the government, cf. Act on Participation in Fishery (Act 5/1999) Sect. 4, which states that a vessel cannot be used for professional fishing unless the vessel is acquired in accordance with a governmental licence, which may be qualified in many respects. Such a licence can be granted to the owner of a specified vessel that is deemed fit for fishing (Sect. 8). The owner must be Norwegian (as defined in Sect. 5), and there are also requirements relating to the domicile (permanent addresses) of the crew members and their previous fishing experience (Sect. 5a and 6).
Chapter III has rules on “special licences” for the use of ocean fishing vessels that hold only the basic licence. In Chapter IV there are rules on “special limitations on fishing”, and in particular we have the important Section 21, providing yearly limitations of the right to participate in certain fishing activities. The effect may be described as imposing a quota system. The judgment mentioned in 1 above gives a short summary of this system, as applying to a ring net vessel – the type of vessel in the case we are considering:
The vessel must have a basic fishing quota, which is not time limited. In addition, the vessel may have a time limited structure quota. The total maximum quota for the vessel is 850 tons. There is a market for the sale of quotas, with prices depending upon supply and demand. When a fishing vessel is mortgaged, the Supreme Court has ruled in the Barents Eagle case (HR-2009-2231) that the collateral for the bank´s mortgage was the vessel’s fishing rights.