Bill Of Lading Plight And Countermeasures

The bill of lading is the most common and important bill used in the carriage by sea, and plays an important role in the international trade. While, having been developed in centuries, the system of bill of lading is now facing challenge, which is not only the validity of the bill of lading doesn't have a defined nature, but also the carriers and their agents have to suffer some barriers in business, e.g. the advanced and anti-dated bill of landing, the remarks of the bill of lading, the shippers' application for changing the records of the bill of lading, the delivering without the bill of lading, and etc. And the property validity of the bill of lading and the delivering without the bill of lading are the two major issues disputed in theory and practice.Ⅰ. The property validity of the bill of lading is always a focus under discussion within specialists, which hasn't come up with a unanimous conclusion until now. The argumentation of this paper is that the title of the bill of lading held by the legal holder has the nature of the property title in accordance with the legal characteristics of the property title. But holding the bill of lading doesn't mean have the ownership of the goods. Based on the analysis with respect to the following aspects, i.e. the issuing of the bill of lading, the delivering under the bill of lading, the regulations of ownership transferring in different countries and the international conventions, and the settle account with letter of credit, the bill of lading has the possession title at the stages of transportation, trading, and settle account. As a document of title, the bill of lading may lose its property title. Unless the holder of the bill of lading expresses to abandon the title of the bill of lading, in the cases of claim for compensation regarding delivering without the bill of lading, the deliver person can regard it as a demurrer reason that the behaviors between the holder of the bill of landing and receiver already lead to the following deemed results, i.e. the expiry of the property title of the bill of lading, or the passing of the property in goods under the bill of landing, or the deemed bilateral agreement on new transaction of the goods under the bill of lading. Ⅱ. The cases of delivery without the bill of lading occupy a certain proportion of the maritime trials. There are extremely different judgments that have beenmade during the practice of maritime trials. Carriers' delivering without the bill of lading can constitute the combination of contractual responsibility and tortuous responsibility, if it meets the requirements of both the contractual behavior and the tortuous behavior, but the action title can have some limitation. And for the agents of carriers, the delivering without the bill of lading which was made without the instruction of carriers can constitute the tortuous responsibility, while the delivering without the bill of lading under carriers' instruction can not place jointly responsibility on the agents, unless the agents are conscious of the delivering is wrong and will have damage to the holder of the bill of lading.It is an awful problem for bill of landing both to play diversified roles and to coordinate the multilateral interests. When there is a conflict arising among the carriers, the agents of carriers, the shippers, and the consignees because of the bill of lading, the letter of guarantee will be the most useful solution for the multilateral parties to resolve the dispute. In addition, the documents on quality, weight, quantity issued by the inspection organizations and notary organs will also be helpful to relieve the pressure on the bill of lading in the trading relationships, and free the carriers and their agents from the trading relationships. But nowadays all the existing countermeasures can not fully resolve the jam which the bill of lading is facing, it means the conflicts within the business of bill of lading will still last for a comparatively long time.