On The Legal Status Of International Freight Forwarders

This dissertation attempted to answer the question-how to distinguish the legal statuses of the international forwarding companies in the various businesses, by analyzing the entrusting and agency and NVOCC.The freight forwarder traditionally acts as an agent who arranges for the shipments of goods belonging to his customer, i.e. the shipper. The freight forwarder as agent arranges for transportation, pays freight charges, insurance, packing, customs duties etc. and then charges a fee, usually a percentage of the total expenses. All the costs are (or should be) disclosed to his customer, the shipper.Sometimes, the freight forwarder has acted as principal contractor arranging the carriage in his own name. Their fees payable by the shipper is a straight freight charge. They then arrange to pay lower freight rates to the carrier and obtain their profit from the rate difference between the two. Very often, the freight forwarder consolidates the cargo of a number of shippers into a single container, resulting in savings which benefit both parties, the freight forwarder and the shippers. On these occasions, the freight forwarder's responsibility to the shipper is often that of a carrier.Whether acting as agent or principal, the freight forwarder (as normal in commerce) usually attempts to contract out of as much responsibility as possible. This has often resulted in very confusing standard trading conditions where the two contradictory roles and kinds of responsibility-of the agent and of the principal-are set out.Chapter one and chapter two of this article was mainly engaged in the actual freight forwarding business and on the relevant definitions of current international and domestic freight forwarding. It mainly discussed the broad scope of business. In many cases, freight forwarding saw them as an agent to avoid the legal responsibility. And the international and domestic-related definitions tend to define it as forwarding agent, even if it is defined as independent operators, but not explicitly defined as principal, so it easily lead to the confusion of forwarding the legal status.Chapter three distinct the status of freight forwarding from the actual differences the entrustment and agency. Because in the case of agent contract, the legal status of forwarder was purely an agent, and it was principal when concluding a entrusting contract. As an agent, freight forwarder can be on the name of the client and on his own behalf. As principal, freight forwarder's businesses were most NVOCC operations, I'll focus on the concept and connotation of NVOCC, NVOCC enjoyed the goods liens, does not enjoy Limitation of Liability for Maritime Claims and house bill of lading with document of title.Chapter four summarizes some specific criteria to find the real legal status of freight forwarder. Then all the freight forwarder can clearly understand their situation.