Article titled: ((Effect of reservations by the maritime carrier of goods on the authority of the Maritime Bill of lading))

Abstract

The maritime bill of lading plays an important and eminent role in the contract for the cariage of goods by sea, on the one hand, and for the international sales contract on the other hand. This importance is due to the functions that it occupies such as the representation of goods which are the subject of the contract. It is, therefore, an argument for the conveyor receipt of such cargoes as described in the bill of lading. However, it often happens that the cargoes are other than those recorded, which inevitab!y necessitate the protection of the conveyor himself by placing his reservations on the deficiency or on the situation that is flot identical to what is documented in the bill. Hence, if the bill has entered into reservations or statements of the validity of the cargoes, it will lose an important and significant part in the representation of the goods transported which leads, of course, to the demolition of the argument or the supporting force of the data recorded. This inevitably conducts to the difficulty of the maritime bill trading and therefore resuits an obstacles in the circulation of goods before arrival, especially if the conveyor had paid a portion of money before shipping. Moreover, the existence of such reservations hinders the credit operations of banks, especially in the opening of the documentary credit, which requires a clean bill of lading. Correspondingly, the bill of lading free of reservations, .i.e. clean, is an argument and a firm presumption of the recorded cargo data and the conveyor must only hand over the legitimated holder the bill of lading and the goods listed therein. As a result, the non-delivery of the goods and their non-conformity with what is described in the bill of lading entails the conveyor's liability to face the consignee.