L’obbligazione di corrispondere il compenso di soccorso alla luce delle ultime pronunce di legittimità

The provision of paying the salvage reward represents a pecuniary obligation identified by art. 12 of the 1989 London Salvage Convention. It assumes the nature of a pecuniary credit as consideration for «assistance operations successfully completed». It is therefore mainly a currency debt. More controversial, in our legal system, is the partial or solidary nature of the obligation to pay salvage reward. Due to the prevailing jurisprudence in our legal system, the principle of partiality of the obligation pursuant to art. 13 of the London Convention doesn’t apply, given that the law itself admits the possibility for the adhering States to regulate the matter differently, which our legal system has done with art. 497c. nav. On the contrary, a prevailing doctrinal guideline, which we adhere to, recognizes the partial nature of the obligation. The reconstruction adopted above of the obligation to pay a salvage compensation as a subjectively complex obligation with partial implementation, can, indeed, be identified in the same art. 497 c. nav., which considers a fee due, and therefore a debt generated by the same case, but divided among the various parties interested in the salvage, according to a mechanism, identified by art. 497 c. nav. «according to the law», i.e. using the system of constitution of the debt mass deducible from the contribution to common averages, without being totally assimilated by it.