La nature juridique des Protecting & Indemnity Clubs anglais

The essay gives a synthetic contents overview of the book «La Natura giuridica dei Protecting & Indemnity Clubs inglesi», Napoli, 2013, published by the same author. This book examines the issue of the English Protecting & Indemnity Clubs as mutual insurance associations incorporated which provide ship-owners with cover for a wide range of liabilities. These Clubs have been founded first among those currently operative and kept a relevant role on the Protection and Indemnity insurance harmonisation process. The book is divided in three chapters and includes a bibliography. The first chapter is dedicated to analyse the P. & I. Clubs origins, membership, organization, regulation and contributing system. The second chapter deals with the Protection and Indemnity cover and its development. The third chapter is devoted to the issue of the English P. & I. Clubs qualification. In this last chapter the author, notwithstanding the impossibility to determine an exact correspondence between legal forms of different systems as the Common and Civil Law, undertakes a comparative analysis between the features of the P. & I. Clubs as set up in a company limited by guarantee and not having a share capital and the Italian legal structures which have been considered by the Italian doctrine and jurisprudence when they have dealt with the abovementioned issue. Following this analysis the author, in consideration of the non-profit-making-basis of the company limited by guarantee and the mutual scope of the P. & I. Clubs, concludes that the Italian legal structure regulated by the Italian Civil Code mostly corresponding to the English P. & I. Clubs is the association as non-profit mutual body. In addition this essay gives an outline about the P. & I. Clubs’ qualification according to French jurisprudence and doctrine.