40th anniversary celebratory session and reception

The IOPC Funds took the opportunity of its meeting of the governing bodies this week to formally celebrate its 40th anniversary. A special session was held at the International Maritime Organization (IMO) during the afternoon of 30 October 2018, during which the three former Directors, Dr Reinhard Ganten, Mr Måns Jacobsson and Mr Willem Oosterveen, were each presented with a special award in recognition of their valuable contribution to the work of the IOPC Funds.
The session was attended by the Secretary-General of IMO, Mr Kitack Lim, Secretaries-General Emeriti, Mr William O’Neil and Mr Efthymios E. Mitropoulos and other eminent persons from the maritime and shipping industry, State representatives, organisations and companies with whom the IOPC Funds has worked closely over years, as well as a large number of former members of the Secretariat.
In opening the session, the Director, Mr José Maura, referred to the IOPC Funds and the international liability and compensation regime as one of the big successes of IMO and thanked Dr Ganten, Mr Jacobsson and Mr Oosterveen personally for all that they had done for the organisation.
The Secretary-General of IMO, Mr Kitack Lim, the Chairman of the 1992 Fund Assembly, Mr Gaute Sivertsen, and the Chairman of the Supplementary Fund Assembly, Mr Sung-Bum Kim, presented the awards to the former Directors, each recalling the significant roles they had played in shaping the organisation into the truly international body it has become today.
Further details, photographs of both the session and the reception which followed, and the speeches given, including the acceptance words by the former Directors and congratulatory statements by a number of delegations, will be made available on the Funds’ website in due course.