Legal Attributes Of The Freight Forward Contract

The international trade has made a big advance, as a consequence freight forward has a huge development, and also the number of freight forward case has a significant increase. In many maritime courts, freight forward case has become the primary.In order to use the right article of law on freight forward case, we should first study the legal attribute of the freight forward contract, to figure out which part of the Contract Law should be applied on the freight forward contract.About the legal attribute of the freight forward contract, practical field experienced a change from commission contract to innominate contract. Before 2012, when the Supreme People’s Court’s Judicial Interpretation of Freight Forward Case(JIFFC for short) published, the practical field treat the freight forward contract as a kind of commission contract. All the services, as warehousing, land transport and handling, are parts of commission. And the freight forward contract should be ruled by chapter 21 of the Contract Law. Advantage of treating freight forward contract as a kind of commission contract is obvious, it’s convenient for enterprises in China to seek legal aid. They can sue freight forwarders in China instead of carrier in other countries.However, treat freight forward contract as a kind of commission contract has some problems. First, the consequence of sub-entrustment between freight forwarders and between freight forwarder and other service provider is different. Then, legal obligation of freight forwarders will be unclear, sometimes freight forwarders may be responsible for mistake which mad by carrier.Based on those problems, practical field attempt to make freight forward contract as a kind of innominate contract which should be ruled by the article 124 in chapter 1 of the Contract Law. Under this article, freight forward contract is a kind of combination of freight contract, warehousing contract, working contract and other service contracts. In this way, legal obligation of freight forwarders is clear. Client can sue third parties, like land transport provider, warehousing provider and so on.At last, the JIFFC published, and freight forward contract is a kind of innominate contract has been approved by court judgment. And will the article 402 of the Contract Law can be applied on freight forward contract may be next issue.