TT Talk Edition 128 - 12/03/2010

Recent case law from the NSW Court of Appeal in Australia acts as a reminder to freight forwarders to consider carefully the question of ‘whether to issue a house bill of lading?’ for a consignment. When doing so, there are clear steps to take to protect the rights of all stakeholders and avoid unforeseen exposures.

This judgment sets out a useful analysis of contracts where a court will examine the conduct of the parties and surrounding circumstances to reach a conclusion. Carriers should be alerted to the importance of knowing who they are dealing with, ensuring that the shipper on a bill of lading is correctly identified.

The original bill of lading is a valuable document and great care should be taken to ensure that it is not lost.

The target of 50% of all bills of lading to be electronic within the next decade has been set by the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) in an announcement made last week. The international freight transport insurer, TT Club welcomes the commitment by the group of container shipping lines that together operate nearly 70% of the world's capacity.