bill of lading shows two consignee

[shahriar]

dear friends,

this is surely a unusual situation and the question may be a stupid one. i received a bill of lading which has two pages; both of them are are identical preprinted form. the first page is quite simple, like a ordinary one. the issuing bank is shown as consignee. the second page is interesting. there is no information there except the consignee field. it is filled with the name of the agent of the shipping line. in the middle of the page it is signed by the carrier in the capacity of the carrier; identical to the first page's sign.

now would you call the BL double consigned?

[picant]

Hi Shahriar,

IMHO, this is a mistake of the shipping company, you have in your hands the "House" bill of lading, issued by the Carrier Agent and to be delivered to the shipper, and the "Master", that the carrier has delivered to the Forwarding Agent. This happens when the Master and House represent the same whole cargo. Recently I got the same but relating to HAWB ans MAWB;

Other comments appreciated

Ciao

[shahriar]

dear picant,

thanks for your reply. i checked the bill of lading again. its a master bill of lading. the problem lies somewhere else. in the credit, there was a condition that the name of the local agent must be mentioned on the bill of lading. now for any reason the issuer choose to use an additional page for this and perhaps accidentally the name of the agent was printed on the consignee box. im very much confused about what type of discrepancy should i raise. though i know that there would have been no problem in realizing the cargo and most probably i will release the document to the applicant tomorrow

[wongvv]

Hi !

I think that, on the face of documents, there is a discrepancy "B/L showing two different consignees differ from L/C stipulated", unless the L/C has these two consignee as well. Since you have the right to refuse the documents, you may ask the local shipping agent the conditions for delivery of goods. If the conditions are clear and acceptable, then applicant may take up the documents accordingly.

V.V.

[ghubshawi]

Dear Shahriar,

Yes it is unusual situation to see two consignees on one B/L but, first of all you should check the LC requirements whether one or two consignees are stipulated. I presume only one!! most likely the issuing bank, if so, then the B/L obviously is discrepant on the ground of document not being as per LC and, it contains some data contradicted witnin itself.

Also, you should check the statuts of freight whether is is payable or prepaid as some shipping companies put a lien on cargoes by consigning it to their agents pending the settlement of freight.

There is no way to ask the shipping agent as the documents should be checked on the basis of the documents alone.

I hope this to help.

Rgds,

Ghubshawi