Importance bill lading for international sea transport
A bill of lading is a document that is considered basic for the sender, cargo carrier and recipient. The lading system bill is international and can be used for combined transport, therefore it is extremely important in every detail.
Simply put, this document confirms that its holder has all legal rights to the goods. Since international and even intercontinental transportations are sometimes carried out according to complex schemes, bills of lading are different. Knowledge of these documentation forms is extremely important, because you can receive the goods only if there is a properly executed and filled in significance bill lading.
Types
There are many types, but in reality the most common are the following:
- Main (ocean) – a document by which you can receive the cargo to the destination point. It is issued by the line carrying out the transportation. The number of this document makes it possible to track the cargo movement;
- Home – it is received by the sender. In fact, it acts as a receipt, in what condition, quantity, the carrier received the cargo;
- Feeder – issued at the goods transshipment port to another vessel. If the delivery comes with a vehicle change, in this case a vessel, the data in the document changes. This means that the previous bill of lading becomes incorrect. For further transportation and customs clearance, you need a “feeder” (slang name for a feeder bill of lading);
- Through (multimodal) – recently this bill of lading type has been increasingly used. It indicates the delivery destination and the starting point. They are used for multimodal transportation with a change in the vehicle type (for example, ship + car or ship + railroad).
Each type requires knowledge in the international rules field for the goods carriage, filling out international documents and other areas, such as customs laws in different countries, rules for transportation in different courts and much more.
Importance of bills of lading
You need to understand exactly that a bill of lading is not only a transport document, which is necessary when registering a cargo at every point: during loading, transportation, receipt. This is a paper that confirms the rights to own the goods. That is, whoever has the document at the moment also owns the cargo. At the loading time and transportation, the bill of lading is in the carrier hands and the sender. But the bill of lading, which is handed over to the recipient or his representative at the port, has great force. From this moment on, the carrier bills of lading and the sender lose their validity. That is, they no longer have any relation to the cargo.
If the main bill of lading is negotiable, then its owner can do anything with the cargo, sell it, use it as collateral for a loan at a bank. Such a document already belongs to the securities category.
The the bill of lading importance is difficult to overestimate. Sometimes even a minor error in registration can lead to serious problems, including the loss of the right to the goods.