| Logistics industry, as a pioneer of the Tertiary Industries, is now playing an essential role in the modern market economy, especially in current situation which economic globalization, intensive collocation of resources and E-business has greatly developed over decades. In the early period of Reform and Opening-up in China, the administration had encouraged the individually-owned transport operators to affiliate the logistics companies for enhancing the level of logistics in transition from plan economy to market economy, causing that the affiliations become popular in logistics industry. The controversy of the legal relations has been brought by the inherent inferiority of the affiliation in imbalance between responsibilities and rights. The courts have the different judgments on the compensation liability for traffic accident loss, ownership and settlement of insurance claim for the reason that there are no unifying legislation and judicial interpretation on the affiliation relationship. However, the market disorder, the declined service and related traffic accidents give the local administrations enough impulses to solve the affiliated in logistics industry. Prohibition or consummating the inside rationality is the questions worthy of deeper research.This article is about to propose a plan and structure on the affiliation relationship in the logistics industry by analyzing the historic development while combining the concrete legal cases.The paper is divided into five parts as follows. The first section introduces the concept of logistics industry and its historic development. Logistics is the process of goods flowing and the timely, accurate and safety system controlling article from the supply parties to the receivings. Logistics enterprise is the economic organization engaging in logistics activities. The second section is to discuss the concept of the affiliation and its origin. The affiliation is not a legal term, having unique political and economical background, which resulting in the expectations of the state on the rapid development of the logistics and meeting the actual demand of the logistics enterprises and individual transport operators. The third section analyzes the advantages and disadvantages on the affiliation. The basis of the affiliation is the win-win effect brought both to the logistics enterprises and individual transport operators, which would lead to the risk of prestige and responsibility for its imbalance between responsibilities and rights. The forth section is the analyzation on legal relations the affiliation involves by using two cases and rechtsschein theorie in commercial law. In the internal legal relations, the difference between the affiliation and agency or contracting is mentioned, while defining anchored internal nature of legal relationship and the management principles. In the external legal relations, there are the discussions on compensation liability for traffic accident loss and the status in the litigation. In addition, the legal relations or the legal recoupment between both parties in the affiliation, and insurance companies, drivers of the affiliation and affiliated enterprises is mentioned as well.. The fifth section is tend to put forward some suggestions on improving the affiliation. The franchise, share repurchasing, individualization or mergence would be possible options. The affiliation is innocent, while the problem lies in how to manage it. Therefore, the evolution of the affiliation should be on the road so that the malpractice that exists could be overcome to convert to more appropriate legal relationship. |
