Article

The ICC Banking Commission's paper concerning board notations, approved early in 2010, has aroused considerable interest. An excerpt from the paper's conclusions is reproduced here.

"Bills of Lading

(a) where the bill of lading indicates a place of receipt that is the same as the port of loading , for example, place of receipt Rotterdam CY and port of loading Rotterdam BUT there is NO indication of a means of pre-carriage (either in the pre-carriage field or the place of receipt field) then:

(i) if the bill of lading is pre-printed shipped on board, the date of issue will be deemed to be the date of shipment and no further on board notation is required;

(ii) if the bill of lading is pre-printed received for shipment, a dated on board notation will be required and the date appearing in the notation will be deemed to be the date of shipment.

(b) where the bill of lading indicates a place of receipt that is different from the port of loading i.e., place of receipt Amsterdam and port of loading Rotterdam BUT there is NO indication of a means of pre-carriage (either in the pre-carriage field or the place of receipt field) then:

(i) if the bill of lading is pre-printed shipped on board, the date of issue will be deemed to be the date of shipment and no further on board notation is required;

(ii) if the bill of lading is pre-printed received for shipment, a dated on board notation will be required and the date appearing in the notation will be deemed to be the date of shipment.

(c) where the bill of lading indicates a place of receipt that is different from the port of loading i.e., place of receipt Amsterdam and port of loading Rotterdam AND there is an indication of a means of pre-carriage (either in the pre-carriage field or the place of receipt field) then:

On Board Notations

(i) if the bill of lading is pre-printed shipped on board, a dated on board notation will be required indicating the name of the vessel and the port of loading. The date of the notation will be deemed to be the date of shipment; (ii) if the bill of lading is pre-printed received for shipment, a dated on board notation will be required indicating the name of the vessel and the port of loading. The date of the notation will be deemed to be the date of shipment.

The exception to the above is where the bill of lading contains wording such as that quoted in section 2.6 or 2.7 of this paper. Where such wording is incorporated into the pre-printed wording, a dated on board notation will be required that also indicates the name of the vessel and the port of loading. As a result of the contents of this document, the conclusion given to Opinion R.644 will be replaced by that under (b) above. In the context of this document, precarriage refers to the carriage between a stated place of receipt and the stated port of loading on a transport document. The flowchart in section 6 explains the requirements for an on board notation in relation to the data content of the bill of lading as may be presented.

Sea Waybills

Same position as for bills of lading.

Multimodal or Combined Transport Documents

Article 19 provides for an indication of the goods being dispatched, taken in charge or shipped on board. The applicable wording will depend upon the mode of conveyance for the first leg of the carriage. It should be noted that article 19 does not require an on board notation as a default position for most of the time ... The key, therefore, is for the credit either:

(a) to expressly require an on board notation, or absent that;

(b) to make clear whether the place from which the goods are to be taken in charge by the carrier is a sea port."

l The full text of the on board notation paper can be found on the ICC website www.iccwbo.org under "Banking Technique and Practice".