Occupation rights

Owners will, where the law allows, often seek to exclude such security of tenure, whilst concessionaires will clearly wish to benefit from it.

However, a concession agreement does not generally give an automatic right to occupy the land. The right to occupy the land may be dealt with in a separate land lease. Alternatively, the right can be contained in the concession agreement, provided that the local law allows for the right to control over land to be granted without the need for a lease.

The key importance is that the terms of the lease and/or concession agreement should be compatible if contained in separate documents.

It is important that if the lease is granted by way of a separate document, it should be considered in the context of and be compatible with, the concession agreement and with the local law as ports are regulated differently in each jurisdiction.

If local law does allow the granting of interests in land to be included in the concession agreement, parties should bear in mind that in many jurisdictions, the instrument conferring title to land (including leasehold) must be registered at the land registry for that jurisdiction.