Subject to Reconfirmation: The Clause That Lets a Charterer Hold Two Ships at Once
The Baltic closed the week at 2,714 on Friday, barely above Thursday's 2,712 (tradingeconomics.com / hellenicshippingnews.com, cross-checked, 30.10.2026). Capesize is still doing the work, rising to 4,126, while Panamax slipped to 1,889 and Supramax eased to 1,865. With the Baltic shut for the weekend, the more useful thing to look at today is something that costs brokers more than a bad market ever does: a badly worded subject.
Most people on a desk have fixed a cargo "subject charterer's reconfirmation" without thinking much about what that subject actually allows. Stem and shippers' approval subjects are tied to something real: a shipper has to vet the vessel, a receiver has to sign off on the laydays. There's a check happening outside the fixture, and once it clears, the subject lifts. Reconfirmation isn't like that. It gives the charterer the right to walk away from a firm rate with no reason required, at any point before lifting, because something better might still turn up.
The abuse version of this is well known on both sides of the market: fix two vessels against the same cargo, hold both subject to reconfirmation, and wait to see which owner blinks first on rate. Nothing about the clause stops it. The Baltic Code treats reconfirmation as common enough now that it no longer flags it as misconduct on its own, which is why owners need to push back on it themselves rather than expect the clause to do that work.
English courts have shown how much weight loose subject wording can carry. In Star Steamship Society v Beogradska Plovidba, the "Junior K" (1988), a fixture held "subject details" was found not to be a binding contract at all, while US courts have gone the other way on near-identical wording. Same two words, opposite outcomes, depending on which side of the Atlantic is reading them. That gap is why the Baltic Code pushes brokers toward "subject agreement of charterparty terms and conditions" instead of a bare "subject details", and why every subject, reconfirmation included, needs a written deadline attached to it.
The practical fix doesn't need a clause rewrite. Put a lifting time on it, in writing, every time. "Subs to be lifted latest 1700 hrs London Monday." If the other side asks for an extension with no reason given, that's the tell that another vessel is still in play, not a formality to wave through.