ICC Digital Library Forum

Case:
L/C calls for shipment by sea from port of loading A to port of discharge B with following document:
46A: “full set of clean on board Bill of Lading, made out to order, blank endorsed, marked 'freight prepaid', notifying address: (applicant)

Following B/L has been presented:
+ Full set of ‘received’ Bill of Lading, showing requirements as per L/C, and bearing a manually signed on-board notation ‘shipped on board + date + stamp (CMA CGM Agencies (I) Pvt. Ltd.’. The B/L is signed by CMA CGM Agencies (India) Pvt. Ltd. as agents for the carrier CMA CGM S.A.

FURTHERMORE, the B/L bears following remarks:
+“This is a RECEIVED FOR SHIPMENT B/L. Any shipped on board mention is invalid unless placed on this B/L by means of the official CMA CGM label.” (Relevant label is missing on B/L!)
+additional clauses (preprinted form): “239. This Bill of Lading has been generated electronically. Bills of Lading bearing a CMA CGM stamp and/or manually signature shall be considered as forged and will be treated as null.”


Questions:
Is such a Bill of Lading acceptable under consideration of UCP600?
What risks will arise if such a B/L is taken up?
What additional risk arise if such a B/L is endorsement by the claiming bank instead of the shipper?

-The bill of lading is discrepant because of article 14d. On the one hand it is manually signed, on the other, if manually signed it does not exist (null). In addition, the official label is missing
-It risks to be rejected
-Risk of being rejected since only the shipper can endorse it in blank.
Regards
Daniel

Personally, this is one of those situations where I would need to see the document presented before I would be willing to opine.

Thoughts going around my head include:
1. How can a document examiner know what is an “official CMA CGM label” and how it differs from a “CMA CGM stamp”?
2. Where on the document is the statement “This Bill of Lading has been generated electronically”? Front, back, how obvious etc.
3. What responsibility, if any, does a document examiner have to look beyond the requirements of Article 20 when they are seemingly met by the document presented?
4. Is 14(d) relevant, given ‘data’ is not apparently at issue?