Shipex

19 March 2020

Dear customer

As you could read in the media during the last days, and we also refer to our newsletters, organizing transport out of Europe has become much more challenging due to the current ‘corona crisis’. There are a lot of uncertainties and the situation is changing day by day.

Therefore we would like to remind you about the following:

At origin - Extra costs for loading in context of crisis
Extra costs that could occur due to problems at the crossing of a border between countries, very long waiting times at terminals, problems at warehouses, … will be for account of the shipper. It goes without saying that we go the extra mile to question every extra cost invoiced by a subcontractor, but they will not bear the costs due to external reasons.
Thus all costs caused by force majeure shall be borne by the principal or shipper.

At destination - contract party with shipping line for longstanding containers and possible extra costs
As usual, irrespective of the current crisis, the shipper and consignee are both ‘contract party’ with the shipping line and therefore responsible for any extra costs (demurrage, detention, storage and plug in) at destination. According to our experience, shipping lines are not willing to grant extra free time.
As we get more and more indications that several countries worldwide go into ‘lockdown’ and/or logistic operations could be interrupted, please – in your own interest – verify profoundly with your consignee-customer about the situation, before starting a new shipment.
Make sure that they can accept and unload your container without any (serious) delay, in order to avoid any extra costs and/or a ‘longstanding’ container at destination. It’s important to discuss this in advance with your customer.

Don't hesitate to contact us for more information.

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