The comparison of forwarding conditions in countries with a civil law system

Abstract

The issue of creating international legislation capable of regulating the sphere of forwarding has been considered for quite a long time. The actively expanding volume of services provided by freight forwarders and the increasing blurring of its role and area of responsibility create problems in the mutual understanding of the participants in the client– forwarder – third party chain. The main obstacle to the implementation of an international legislative act is the difference in the laws and customs of individual countries. To identify these differences, the authors analyzed such factors as the range of services provided by the forwarder, the conditions of access to the forwarding market, the type of representation used by forwarders in the contract and the definition of the boundaries of the forwarder's responsibility to the client. The analysis was carried out by studying national legal acts regulating the field of forwarding, as well as the general conditions of forwarding applied by members of national associations of forwarding and logistics in countries with a civil law system. The greatest difference was revealed in the field of conditions of access to the forwarding market, while the functionality of the forwarder, the types of representation used and the limits of responsibility of forwarders from different countries did not indicate any big differences. The result of the work is the conclusion that there are no critical differences in the work of freight forwarders of countries with a civil law system that can hinder the unification of forwarding conditions.