CANADIAN FORWARDERS REJECT INTERNATIONAL REFORM OF LIABILITY CONVENTION

CANADIAN FORWARDERS REJECT INTERNATIONAL REFORM OF LIABILITY CONVENTION    The Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association said that it objects to the proposed regulatory reform of maritime liability conventions proposed by the Comit' Maritime International.
   The Comit' Maritime International, the influential international body of national maritime law associations, recently issued a so-called “outline instrument” at its international conference held in Singapore in February to regulate multimodal transport and to replace the current Hague-Visby Rules.
   The Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association said that it is “opposed to the outline instrument on the grounds that a proposed multimodal convention that would allow ocean carriers to contract out of inland liability is a sham.”
   “Also, the proposed convention is prejudicial to 40,000 freight forwarders and non-vessel-operating common carriers around the world by its ‘performing carrier’ provisions that create contractual liability on agents who otherwise have no such liability,” the Canadian forwarders group said.
   The Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association nevertheless said that it “supports the notion of a uniform multimodal transport convention,” but believes that such a convention must be “fair and equitable to all affected groups.”
   Any such convention must involve the direct participation of multimodal transport operators, namely the freight forwarding industry and ocean transportation intermediaries, or it would otherwise have no legitimacy, the Canadian forwarders body said.
   The Canadian group alleged that shipowner interests proved strong at the Comit' Maritime International Singapore conference, as modifications were adopted “to immunize ocean carriers from multimodal liability.” The outline instrument would allow ocean carriers to contract out of inland liability altogether under a “through transport” provision that limits the scope of their contractual responsibility to sea carriage only, even if they were to handle the inland transport, it added.
   The Comit' Maritime International has worked on a reform of current international cargo liability conventions for over a year, partly as a result of the legislative initiatives to transform the U.S. Carriage of Goods by Sea Act of 1936 into a multimodal carriage law.
   The Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association said that many of the provisions found in the U.S. senate bill to reform the COGSA law are also in the outline instrument of the Comit' Maritime International. This includes: door-to-door scope of application; uniform Hague-Visby liability limitations of two special drawing rights per kilo or 666.67 special drawing rights per package; elimination of the “Himalaya” defence through the introduction of    a “performing carrier” definition that conjoins all agents and subcontractors of the contracting carrier as parties to the contract of carriage for liability purposes; and elimination of the carrier’s “error in navigation or management of the vessel” defense.