권리포기 선화증권의 실무관행과 분쟁예방

Trade Practice of Surrender Bill of Lading and Prevention of Its Disputes

Two solution approaches have been suggested globally to solve the crisis of bill of lading; that is to say, electronic bill of lading and sea waybill. Electronic bill of lading is not unsettled as a solution to solve the crisis of bill of lading but sea waybill is used on a global basis to do so. The surrendered bill of lading is applied for practical usage instead of sea waybill in a short voyage among Korea, China, and Japan, owing to faster delivery at destination and lower cost than bill of lading. To surrender the original bill of lading, the consignor should submit all originals with a request letter to the carrier of goods with necessary surrender charges, if any, in doing so. Once after receiving the original bills of lading consisting of normally three originals but in some cases five, the carrier stamped “Surrendered” on the front of original bills of lading and sent a message to his counterpart at the port of destination, stating that the original bill of lading surrendered at the port of shipment and the consignee can take delivery of the goods without production of the original bill of lading at destination. The legal regime of the surrendered bill of lading is not settled as it is not considered legally as bill of lading, and the decisions rendered by each nation’s courts are different according to the usages of the surrendered bill of lading. The purpose of this paper is to prevent the disputes between parties with regard to the surrendered bill of lading by studying the causes and precautions of disputes in relation to the surrendered bill of lading.