Bill Of Lading Date Vs. Date Of Shipment

[shahriar]

Dear all,

today i received a set of document under a LC covering import of Log from Nigeria. The BL shows,

Date of shipment: 31-10-2008
Date of Issuance: 16-11-2008

The forwarding schedule is dated as 21-11-2008. The document is discrepant since the LC calls for presentation within 15 days from the date of shipment. but my confusion is somewhere else. the shipment advice shows BL date as 31-10-2008. do you think this is the BL date. to be the BL date is 16-11-2008. looking for your opinion

regd

shahriar

[cristiand969]

Dear Shahriar
First of all, please do not hurry with the discrepancy of late shipment because unless the presenting bank clearly specified this, or the credit is available with issuing bank - IT IS NOT.
15 days after 31.10.2008 means 15 november when banks surely was closed (and presentation was effected the next following working day .i.e 17.11.2008 - as per art.29a). Then, the presenting bank has 5 working day FOLLOWING the day of presentation (by virtue of art. 14b). Consequently the last date permitted for dating the covering schedule is actually 24.11.2008. If I were the presenting bank I would strongly disagree with you :twisted: and I demand interest for payment delay.
Regarding your actual question one must see the document as both options seems to have equal status as per ISBP articles.
However the most important thing within this document is that the applicant is more concerned with the date of shipment rather than the date of document. So 31.10.2008 would prevail and make document compliant.
The Letter of credit is a payment mechanism not a non-payment one.
regards
Cristian

[shahriar]

dear cristian,

thanks for your reply. i in fact honored the presentation today even without charging for discrepancies. i usually check document to gain some knowledge rather than stopping payment. im happy with you last line and hope that other will understand this. or else someday we will find all our knowledge and understanding useless.

about the late presentation; the presentation is indeed a late one. The LC calls for a presentation 15 days from the date of shipment. while the shipment date is 31-10-08, the BL issuance date is 16-11-08 which means that 15 days are over before the issuance of the BL. that means the nominated bank in no way can say that it has received the document in due time.

regd

shahriar

[cristiand969]

Dear Shahriar,
Frankly speaking you catched me with issuance date...
Yes you are right and I agree with you it is late presentation.
regards
Cristian

[iLC]

i dont think that BL date means the shipment date. to me it means the issuing date of the BL. shipped on board is an event and not a date of document

[cristiand969]

Dear ILC
This is what we were talking about. ....

[ofei]

Agree with iLC. You may read an article posted on DCINSIGHT by Wangshanlun. He thinks that the date of issuance of bill of lading is not necessay coz there is always an on oboard notation. The date of shipment on the bill of lading is enough. I totally agree with him though B/L usually contains two dates (issuance date and on board date) in practice. China's marine code also stipulates that lack of the date of issuance won't make the bill of lading invalid.
How do you think of this?

Ofei

[iLC]

dear ofei,

if the shipped on board date is different form the date issuance of BL, i see no significant use of BL issuance date. thus logically BL issuance date is not important.

dear cristian,

i was trying to answer you comment where you have said

Regarding your actual question one must see the document as both options seems to have equal status as per ISBP articles.

i took this as a statement which means that BL date and shipment date has equal status. am i right in my explanation?

[cristiand969]

Dear ILC,
Perhaps my explanations was very short and rather vague.
I was not referring to the issuance date and shipment date to have equal status as we weren't talked about B/L but the shipment advice.
I quoted 'equal status as per ISBP articles' regarding the wording within that shipment advice as it is more important for the applicant the date of shipment rather than issuance date. And with this in mind I drew a closed line between such kind of declaration and how ISBP articulates these tweo dates let say from maturity point of view. i.e. If the tenor refers to xxx days after the bill of lading date, the on board date is deemed to be the bill of lading date even if the on board date is prior to or later than the date of issuance of the bill of lading.
I admit it is difficult and even risky to post here solutions without actually seeing LC requirement and document in question.
However thank you for your observation.
regards
Cristian

[iLC]

i understand your point. agree with you. good analogy with the maturity date. appreciated