With the current development in the transportation industry, the emergence of new types of bill of lading is quite rampant nowadays. A Bill of Lading is a titled document which acts as a receipt of goods, contract of carriage and title to the goods.
In view of the time constraint, difficulties in obtaining shipping guarantee for imports on collection basis or open account method and expensive demurrage charges, the introduction of the Telex Released or Surrendered Bill of Lading would reduce costs to the importer. A telex released Bill of Lading or popularly known as Surrendered B/L is a normal ocean Bill of Lading which is used by sellers and buyers to clear goods promptly without presenting the original Bill of Lading. The usage of this method is due to 2 main reasons:
1. Shipment that takes 2 to 3 days to reach final destination e.g. China, Indonesia, Thailand.
2. Open account method of payment or cash advance.
The supplier will prepare the shipment and ships the goods to the buyer. The original Bill of Lading will be faxed to the Importer for immediate payment. Once the supplier receives amount of the invoice from the buyer, the supplier will then instruct the shipping company to inform by telex or email to surrender the goods to the buyer named in the bill of lading. The original Bill of Lading will be retained by the shipping company and not released to the supplier.
This may not happen in L/C transaction since the shipper (beneficiary of L/C) need to present original B/L to his bank for payment. Therefore L/C must prohibit the condition whereby surrendered B/L is acceptable.
