In the nineteenth century a clause concerning civil liability was attached to insurance documents in maritime transport. Concretely, this confirmed the insurer's acceptance of three-quarters of the liability for any collision. The ship owner accepted one quarter of the liability. Ship owners, wishing to spread the material risk of damages connected with the collision of vessels, began to join together in so-called mutual insurance clubs. Thirteen of the largest mutual insurance clubs formed a society called the International Group of P and I Clubs. This insures and reinsures more than 90% of world tonnage (and almost 100% of the cargo of European tonnage). The author discusses the decision of the European Commission (1999/329/WE) which grants the International Group of P and I Clubs exemption from the prohibition of cartel collusion and from two agreements: the International Group Agreement and the International Pooling Agreement, to both o f which it exclusively applies. The first agreement limits competition between clubs and the possibility of bringing a ship owner insured in one club into another club by offering him a lower rate. The second agreement concerns the spreading o f the risk o f liability for claims among members of the Group.

The author writes about an important problem of maritime commercial law. She draws attention to the possibility of exploiting a form of understanding among ship owners (called line conferences), even on the basis of European law. This will be a matter of importance from the perspective of the interests of Polish ship owners after Poland's accession to the European Union. At the same time the author draws attention to the OECD report which indicates that this specific feature of maritime transport already belongs to the past, and that one can be certain that liberal tendencies will also extend to the business of ship owning. The future will show if the member states of the OECD will adapt to this tendency. It appears that the reform of shipping legislation in the USA in 1988 began a new era of the gradual opening of the shipping-line sector to free competition. Reform will also take this direction in the European Community, although the process will certainly not be speedy.

In 2001 and 2002, a number of inquiries concerning state aid for firms providing services of general economic interest in ports were directed to the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. These inquiries pertained specifically to the definition of such aid. An answer was anticipated to the question of whether supplying partialfunding from state resources to firms providing services of general economic interest is, in fact, such aid or simply remuneration for services provided. Since the opinions of the European Court of Justice to date have been contradictory, clarification is necessary. One of the cases submitted to the tribunal regarded aid granted to firms which manage rechnical equipment in Italian ports.