Shipping and Marine Transport Editing and Proofreading Services

Four hundred bags of resin come alongside. Perhaps thirty are torn, several are stained, and the pallets have clearly been rained on before they reached the quay. The mate has ten minutes and a clean bill of lading in front of him. Signing it clean makes the paperwork work, the letter of credit clear and the ship sail on time. It also means that when the cargo is discharged in that condition, the carrier will be presumed to have caused it.

We edit what shipowners, operators, agents and shippers produce — bill of lading clauses and mate's receipts, cargo condition and tally records, letters of protest and their responses, charterparty correspondence and laytime statements, port agency instructions and voyage documentation, claims and survey correspondence, and the notes made on a quay under time pressure. Our editors work on wording written between a ship's schedule and a bank's requirements.

The clausing of a bill of lading is where a shipowner's exposure is set for years, and its failure is a clean receipt for cargo that is not in apparent good order. Cargo is presumed to have been shipped as the document describes it. We work through these so the clause describes what was seen rather than what it implies, since "said to be" and "shipper's weight and count" are disclaimers and a torn bag is an observation; so the extent is quantified — how many, which lot, what proportion — because a general reference to some damaged bags is worth almost nothing against a claim for four hundred; so the condition is described in physical terms, given that stained, torn and wet are facts while unsuitable is a conclusion somebody will contest; so the remark distinguishes what was observed from what was inferred about its cause, as attributing damage exceeds what anybody can know at the rail; so the clause is written knowing a bank may reject the document, and the commercial consequence is put to the shipper in writing rather than absorbed quietly; so a letter of protest is issued and acknowledged with time and date; and so the mate's receipt and the bill match, since the discrepancy between them is the first thing a claims lawyer looks for. Clausing written this way holds.

Everything you send is treated in confidence, including shipping documents, claims files and commercial correspondence. We are editors rather than mariners, shipbrokers or maritime lawyers, and we offer no view on liability, cargo condition or any claim. What we can do is make the remark describe what was actually seen.