Golden rules

A RECENT analysis by the International Transport Intermediaries Club has revealed that delivery of cargo without bills of lading remains the largest single cause of claims against both liner and port agents. This comes as no surprise, of course, and neither does the fact that ITIC says the first golden rule for ship agents is to always to obtain the original bill of lading. But it as well to remember that rules - even golden ones - are there to be broken. I understand that, in the Netherlands for example, the law now allows carriers more freedom as to whether or not they issue a bill of lading at all and, if they do, what they put in it.

This is hardly any comfort to ship agents, whose best interests are in any case seldom if ever in the thoughts of the architects of national legislation. Agents can have their ten golden rules, but they know there is really one rule for them and one for everybody else.