A Study Of The Legitimacy Of Maritime Freight Forwarder Arresting Logistics Documents In China

In maritime cargo transportation agency business practice in China,client’s failure of the payment of due charges or freights leaves the freightforwarder little choice but to arrest the verification sheet, bill of lading orother logistics documents to push the client to make payment.Under Chinese civil laws and business laws, there is no specific lawto regulate whether such behavior is legal.“The Provisions of theSupreme People’s Court on Several Issues about the Trial of CasesConcerning Marine Freight Agency Disputes”, which issued on1May2005, is the first law explanation for certain issues. However, there arestill some problems in practicing these provisions.This paper tries to analyze whether such arresting-documentsbehavior is lawful refer to relevant laws, business regulations and its legalcharacter, whether the freight forwarders have right to arrest thedocuments when they are playing the different legal roles and which legaltheory they can base on, what features the document should have if it canbe arrested, how such arresting right should be limited under certaincircumstances and this paper also gives suggestions to the legalization oflogistics documents arresting issues.