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The bill of lading is the most important document in international trade and one of the few that does three unrelated jobs at once. It is a receipt for goods, evidence of the contract of carriage, and a document of title that can be bought, sold, and pledged while the cargo is still at sea. Most of the disputes that arise around it come from confusing those functions or from treating the third one as a formality. A shipper who focuses on the description of goods, a carrier wh

The $500 per package liability limit under the US Carriage of Goods by Sea Act is one of the most litigated provisions in American maritime law. It is also one of the most consequential for anyone with cargo moving to or from the United States, because when a carrier invokes it successfully, the gap between what cargo is actually worth and what the carrier owes can be enormous. A container of electronics worth $2 million becomes a $500 claim if the carrier can establish that