Joseph Manolo REBANO

Introduction

Joseph Manolo Rebano joined Del Rosario & Del Rosario in 1996 and currently heads the firm’s marine casualty practice and special projects team. Rebano has a broad maritime focused practice. He acts for vessel owners and charterers, managers or agents, transport intermediaries, port terminals, protection and indemnity clubs, and other marine insurers in both contentious and non-contentious matters.

Rebano’s experience covers a wide range of shipping matters, including charter party disputes, ship casualties, marine environmental and pollution claims, defence of seafarer personal injury and death claims, ship arrest, ship finance or sale and purchase, and disputes involving carriage of goods or passengers.

He has been involved in numerous major marine casualties in the Philippines and other jurisdictions, including collisions, fires and groundings. The most recent being the Houthi’s missile attack on True Confidence last March of 2024 which took the life of 3 seafarers and injuring many others. These were the first fatalities in the Houti attacks resulting to the Philippine government being heavily involved as Filipino seafarers and their families were greatly affected.

Some of the other significant maritime casualties Rebano handled are the “NOL Schedar” in 2000 (grounding or pollution incident resulted in major changes in Philippine maritime environmental legislation), “Solar 1” in 2006 (considered as the Philippines’ largest pollution incident), “Superferry 14” in 2004 (terrorist bombing), and “St Thomas Aquinas” in 2013 (potential wreck removal due to collision).

Rebano also has considerable experience in commercial, corporate, regulatory and transactional matters specialising in maritime-related entities, including disputes arising from joint ventures, compliances and among shareholders.

He is involved in the OSM Thome merger which is recognised as the largest ship management merger to date.

He is a hall of fame lawyer for shipping in Legal 500 and a distinguished practitioner for shipping in AsiaLaw. He is shortlisted in the Asialaw 2024 Regional Awards in Aviation and Shipping Lawyer of the Year.

Chambers Asia 2012 states: “Joseph Rebano is best known for his expertise in admiralty and related investigations. Sources describe him as ‘an outstanding lawyer, is very diligent and very thorough.”