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about the same charter party document that i received today,

the LC says "charter party document acceptable but at the same time says that blank back or short form of BL not allowed. the BL main page (which contains all the shipping information) is marked as page two while page one is one the reverse (terms and condition page). my colleague said that a charter party bill of lading is always short form. how should i interpret the terms on page one? if they are not terms and condition then the bl is a short form. then doesnt it violate the "blank back" clause?

Dear Berry,

According to art 20, item V UCP600: short form BL and blank BL is acceptable by bank

So, in my opinion, in your case, the issuing bank would like to have:

1. Charter party bill with full back (have terms and conditions in its back)or
2. Bill of lading with full terms and conditions

Because, there is always the risk that the hoder of such the Bill of lading may claim that he was unable to ascertain himself of the terms and conditions of the documents and he consequently cannot be bound by them. So, it is not discrepancy or ambigous LC.

Regards,

you are right in pointing out that a charter party BL is always short form. you need to understand first about what are the contents of the back of the BL? (does not necessarily mean the reverse of the BL). the contents are the terms and condition. if you read the so called terms on the first page of the charter party BL, you will see that none of them are actually terms of the carriage rather they are merely pointing to some other rules (clause of paramount includes hague visby rule) and the charter party (the actual contract) and this is the prime characteristics of a short form of bill of lading. therefore charter party is always short form and the credit has therefore conflicting terms