Practice areas

Wet & dry shipping; marine casualty & environmental claims; ship finance & commercial transactions; corporate & foreign investment; insurance & reinsurance

Introduction

Joseph Rebano joined Del Rosario & Del Rosario in 1996, and currently heads the firm’s marine casualty practice. 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 the 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. Some of the significant maritime casualties he has been involved in are the NOL Schedar in 2000 (grounding or pollution incident resulting in major changes in Philippine maritime environmental legislation), Solar 1 in 2006 (considered the Philippines’ largest pollution incident), Superferry 14 in 2004 (terrorist bombing), and St Thomas Aquinas in 2013 (potential wreck removal due to collision).

On the insurance side, Rebano advises clients on various types of insurance products, including regulatory and claim-related matters. He also has considerable experience in commercial, corporate, regulatory and transactional matters, specialising in maritime-related entities including disputes arising from joint ventures, compliance and shareholder disputes.

Year on year, Rebano has been recognised in various legal directories. He is a hall of fame lawyer for shipping in Legal 500, and a distinguished practitioner for shipping in AsiaLaw. Chambers Asia 2012 stated: “Joseph Rebano is best known for his expertise in admiralty and related investigations. Sources describe him as ‘an outstanding lawyer, very diligent and very thorough’.”

Since 2018, Rebano has consistently been recognised by Asia Business Law Journal as among the Philippines Top 100 lawyers.

He is a past president of the Philippine Maritime Law Association, former vice chairman of the Inter-Pacific Bar Association (IPBA) Maritime Committee, a former core group member of the Draft Maritime Code project of the Philippine congress, and a trustee in the Philippine Bar Association. He graduated in law from the University of the Philippines.

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