Research On Legal Problems Of Freight Forwarder Concerning Delivery Of Bill Of Lading Under FOB

In the cases that contracting parties adopt FOB to conduct international transactions,the buyer usually arranges transportation of goods,and the seller is responsible for loading goods on the ship appointed by buyer.During the transaction,the foreign buyer usually entrusts domestic freight forwarder to book the ship,and in order to be feasible or trade in accordance with buyer's instructions,the domestic seller would like to deliver goods to the same freight forwarder,and then entrust the same agent to handle transactions for them,such as the goods packing,the inland transportation,the clearance of goods,etc.The above situation usually leads to some disputes in the maritime judicial practice.Under these circumstances,the freight forwarder is entrusted by both sides of transactions.But,there exists no clear agreements about the delivery of bill of lading,and the freight forward usually sends the bill of lading to the foreign buyer,then the domestic seller cannot get money because of losing the right of controlling on goods.At this time,the seller asks the freight forwarder to compensate for the losses.Facing the disputes above-mentioned,people's court usually makes judgments that the agent have to deliver the bill of lading to the one called actual shipper(the actual shipper is same as seller)on the basis of Article 8 of the Provisions on a Certain Number of Problems concerning the Trial of Cases Related to Sea Freight Forwarder(hereinafter referred to as "the Freight Forwarder Provisions"),which was enacted by Supreme People's Court on May 1,2012.Considering the role of freight forwarder,the thesis studies the legal problems of freight forwarder concerning delivery of bill of lading under FOB focused on the Article 8 of the Freight Forwarder Provisions.This thesis is divided into five chapters:Chapter 1 is an overview.Beginning with a brief introduction to the definition of freight forwarder,then the author analyzes two typical cases happened after the enforcement of "the Freight Forwarder Pro visions" and brings about ten problems about the topic,and explains the reasons lead to the topic at last.Charter 2 focuses on freight forwarder's duty to deliver the bill of lading under FOB.First of all,this part starts from the seven aspects to illustrate the rationality of freight forwarder's duty to deliver the bill of lading to actual shipper,and then studies the exception of freight forwarder's duty to deliver the bill of lading.Chapter 3 discusses how freight forwarder fulfill its duty to deliver the bill of lading under FOB,including some conditions for the fulfillment of the duty,the barriers and solutions,and the balance between the duty of the freight forwarder to deliver the bill of lading under the FOB and the actual shipper's priority.Chapter 4 elaborates the legal liability of the freight forwarder in violation of the duty to deliver the bill of lading,including the principle of imputation of the legal liability,the determination of the fault of the freight forwarder and the proportion of the liability of the freight forwarder.Charter 5 puts forward some suggestions to freight forwarder on the problems of delivery of bill of lading under FOB.