SCOPIC clause (special compensation for salvors)
An add-on to the Lloyd's Open Form salvage contract that guarantees the salvor tariff-based pay, funded by the P&I club, when it works on a ship threatening the environment.
Salvage law rests on the principle of no cure, no pay: the salvor is paid in proportion to the value it saves. That principle discourages intervention on a low-value ship that nonetheless threatens to pollute a coastline. The 1989 London Salvage Convention created special compensation, payable by the shipowner, covering the expenses of a salvor who tried to prevent environmental damage, with an uplift. The SCOPIC clause, negotiated among salvors, shipowners, P&I clubs and hull insurers, replaces that uncertain calculation with a daily tariff for personnel and equipment, increased by a 25% bonus. The salvor may invoke it at any time, the club provides security, and ordinary salvage pay based on saved value is reduced only if it exceeds the SCOPIC amount. For insurers, the clause allocates the burden clearly: saved value for hull and cargo insurers, the environment for the P&I club.
The SCOPIC clause was introduced in 1999, two years after the House of Lords ruled in the Nagasaki Spirit case on February 6, 1997 that the special compensation under the 1989 convention covered only the salvor's expenses, with no profit margin.
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