... the foreign suppliers and freight forwarders who consign Flexi Tanks of chemicals on ocean bills to unsuspecting Australian freight forwarders who willingly and without thinking about the possible consequences, collect charges and exchange house bills for delivery orders or collect charges for express bills. The supplier's clients then use the Flexi Tanks to store the chemicals, saving commercial tank storage fees and the multiple handling costs of moving the chemicals from the Flexi Tanks to storage tanks and back into tankers to deliver the chemicals to customers in Australia. We have seen two cases of this happening recently, where one client has been invoiced for $23K in demurrage and another has a liability of over $300K.

 

 

Always be very cautious before processing documents for cargo carried on an ocean bill which has come to you as unsolicited or free hand cargo. The lure of a few apparently easy dollars for processing a few house bills of lading where you are shown on the ocean bill as the consignee can have horrific consequences.

 

Each situation should be considered on it merits. If you are unable to resolve a situation such as we have described above, we would welcome the opportunity to see if we can offer any assistance or suggestions and preferably before any house bills of lading are cleared.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Phone:	(02) 9873 1447 (International: 61 2 9873 1447)
Fax:	(02) 9873 1264 (International: 61 2 9873 1264)
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Web:	http://www.dutg.com.au/