Limitation of liability in transport of goods

When we want to ship goods or merchandise either from the boat, or any other point, to any destination, we usually don’t consider what would happen if things went wrong. Even if it’s unlikely to have a problem during the transport, is important to keep in mind that if the good is damaged by the carrier during its transport, the carrier has the right to limit its liability. This means that even if the carrier was responsible of the damage, he doesn’t have to compensate us for the total value of the goods we are sending, nor for the legal damages, i.e., repairing the merchandise.

The laws in the transport sector allow the carrier to limit its liability.

Before giving you some examples of compensations regarding the limitation of liability in transport, you need to get familiar with the concept DEG (Derecho Especial de Giro) or SDR (Special Drawings Rights) as any kind of compensation in the transportation industry is calculated based on its value. Special Drawing Rights are supplementary foreign exchange reserve assets defined and maintained by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The value of a SDR is based on a basket of key international currencies reviewed by IMF every five years and even if it's not a currency its, value fluctuates as currencies do. You can check the value of SDR here.

Now that you know what a DEG or SDR is, let's take a look at a few cases:

Imagine that we want to send a mobile that has a value of 1000€, and it weighs 200g. If the carrier damages the cell phone, what amount could we claim from the carrier? generally, it will work on the following way:

• International road transport: 8.33DEG (10.63€) per kg of the merchandise. As the mobile weighs 200g, the carrier would compensate us 2.16€ instead of those 1.000€
• 
  
• International maritime transport: 2DEG (2.55€) per kg, in the case of the cell phone we would be compensated at 0.51€ (not 1000€).
• 
  
• International air transport: 19DEG (24,26€) per kg, for the mobile we would be compensated in 4,8€ (not 1000€).
• 
  

It looks crazy, right? That’s why declaring the value of our goods is important.

If we want the carrier to compensate us with the 100% of the value of the item that is being sent, according to the transport laws, we must "declare the value of the goods". This means taking out an insurance, either directly through the carrier or with an insurance company.

There is another scenario in which the carrier would had to compensate us with the 100% of the value: When the carrier's good practices have been breached causing the damage on our goods. The bad thing about it is that this issue has to be proven, and of course is not always an easy task.

Every time you contract any kind of transport with your port agent, you will need to have this information in your mind and ask if the service provided will be tight to the transportation law.

Evolution Yacht Agents is a company with both national and international transport license that will give you full coverage. In this way, any time you are hiring a transport of any goods for your superyacht with us you can be assured that you are not getting this service under a contract of carriage with limited liability.

In case you want to get more information regarding limited responsibility about any order for your superyacht, contact Alfons Esteve, member of the legal department of the Evolution team at alfons@evolutionagents.com

Note: This post is not legal advice.