What is the difference between ship financing lease and ship general lease?

As a special form of bareboat charter contract, bareboat charter purchase contract is essentially different from ship financing charter contract. Article 154 of China's Maritime Code clearly stipulates: "When concluding a bareboat charter contract, the charterer shall pay the hire purchase fee to the shipowner according to the agreement, and the ownership of the ship shall belong to the shipowner." It can be seen from this article that the bareboat hire purchase contract has the nature of installment sale, and the charterer has the right to expect the ownership of the ship. However, in the ship financing lease contract, the lessee does not enjoy this right. As for the ownership of the ship at the end of the period, it is only because of the contract that the charterer does not naturally acquire the ownership of the ship at the end of the period. Moreover, in some countries (such as the United States), for tax reasons, contracts containing the clause that the ownership at the end of the period belongs to the lessee are not recognized as financial lease contracts, but as sales contracts. Judging from the way the charterer obtains the ownership of the ship, the hire purchase transaction only involves one contract. When both parties and the charterer pay the hire purchase fee to the shipowner as agreed, the ownership of the ship will belong to the shipowner. In the process of financial leasing transaction, before or at that time when the lessee and the lessor signed the financial leasing contract, the lessor did not own the ownership of the ship selected by the lessee, but purchased the ownership of the ship from a third party after the contract was signed, and then transferred the ownership of the ship to the lessee after the financial leasing contract was fulfilled.

At the end of the period, the ownership of the ship can not be used as an element to judge the ship financing lease contract, but only as an optional element. In some financial leasing contracts in which the ownership of the ship is owned by the lessee at the end of the period, of course, obtaining ownership is one of the main purposes of the lessee. However, it cannot be generalized that the sole purpose of all ship financing lease contracts is to obtain the ownership of the ship. For many charterers, choosing a ship financing lease contract, on the one hand, is free to choose the ship they are satisfied with, especially special ships or new ships, on the other hand, it can avoid huge financial pressure and set the lease term longer, so as to accept the rent paid by installments and avoid the fluctuation of ship prices and the risk of changing leases. On the other hand, they can indirectly enjoy financial leasing. Due to the long lease period, the residual value of the ship at the end of the period has not been really valued by the lessee. Moreover, with the emphasis on ship safety in various countries and the introduction of mandatory scrapping of ships, the advantages of old ships have been greatly reduced. Therefore, the charterer only values the right to use the ship within a certain period of time, that is, to obtain the right to use the ship that he has chosen and is satisfied with through financial leasing, which is the meaning of the word "lease" in the ship financial leasing contract.

The leaseback contract, also known as the after-sale leaseback contract, is a special form of ship financial leasing contract, which can best reflect that the lessee obtains the right to use the ship through financial leasing. Simply put, the shipping company sells the ship to the financial leasing company first, and then rents it back for use. In the whole transaction process, only one financial lease contract is needed. Obviously, the buyer and the seller are integrated in the transaction process, and the lessor does not have to sign a sales contract with another third party. In the leaseback contract, the function of financial leasing company as a financing intermediary is more prominent. When a shipping company sells a ship to a financial leasing company, it first revitalizes the enterprise's liquidity to make the operation smoother, and then rents the ship back so that its shipping business will not be affected. The financial leasing company can not only recover the financing cost, but also make considerable profits by paying the rent in equal installments through the shipping company. At this time, the ship financing lease contract (leaseback contract) has completely become a tool for the capital operation of shipping companies. In a deeper sense, the status of ship ownership has been weakened by the means of ship financing lease contract.

In a word, the ship financing lease contract should not only be different from the traditional bareboat contract with the nature of property lease, but also avoid being classified as a special form of partially covered bareboat contract and ignoring its leasing significance. Only by grasping financing and financing can we have a deeper understanding of the maritime contract of ship financing lease contract. In practice, it is not 100% accurate to distinguish two types of contracts from the subject, but it is still a simple and good method.