Forwarding agent - Indian Laws - General

Definition of forwarding agent As per Black s Law Dictionary (Seventh Edition),- forwarding agent. 1. A person or company whose business is to receive and ship goods for others - Also termed freight-forwarder. 2. A freight forwarder who assembles less-than-carload shipments small shipments into carload shipments, thus taking advantage of lower freight rates. The Penguin Business Dictionary defines this expression in the following words: Forwarding agent. A GENERAL AGENT who specializes in moving goods from a factory or port of entry to their proper destination. Such an agent normally owns the transport necessary for this work and often arranges FREIGHT and customs formalities for his principal. In Fourth Edition of Halsbury s Laws of England (Volume 5), the characteristics of forwarding agents are narrated in the following manner: 442. Characteristics of forwarding agents. A forwarding agent is one who carries on the business of arranging for the carriage of gods for other people. It must be clearly understood that a forwarding agent is not, in general, a carrier: he does not obtain possession of the goods: and he does not undertake the delivery of them at the other end. All that he does is to act as agent for the owner of the goods to make arrangements with the people who do carry, such as shipowners, road hauliers, railway authorities and air carriers, and to make arrangements, so far as they are necessary, for the intermediate steps between the ship and the rail, the customs or anything else. Although there is a clear distinction between a forwarding agent and a carrier, the same person may carry on both activities at once, and contract sometimes as one and sometimes as the other. Rights and liabilities of forwarding agents. The rights and liabilities of a forwarding agent are governed by the general principles of the law of agency: and so he is entitled to be indemnified against all expenses incurred on behalf of his principal and to be paid his proper charges for his services. He is liable for failure to make proper arrangements for the carriage and for ancillary matters which he has undertaken, such as customs clearance. He is not liable for the failings of persons with whom he makes contracts on behalf of his principal, unless he know of those failings and ought to have taken action either to remedy them or at least to inform his principal so that damage might be avoided or mitigated: thus he is under no duty to supervise the actions of carriers whom he reasonably and properly expects to perform their normal obligations competently. In ordinary transactions a forwarding agent is not liable for failing to insure the goods, in the absence of instructions from his customer to do so: but he may, in certain circumstances, be liable for not consulting his customer and advising him as to the proper transport and insurance arrangements which should be made for valuable goods. A forwarding agent is not normally personally liable to pay the charges of carriers whom he engages to carry the gods on behalf of his principal; but there is a custom of the London freight market that forwarding agents incur personal liability to shipowners for the payment of freight or of dead freight for booked space left unfilled. A forwarding agent who tenders dangerous goods to carriers without warning them of their nature or of the precautions which should be taken in their carriage is personally liable to the carriers for any resulting damage through breach of the implied warranty that the goods are fit for carriage. M/S. COAL HANDLERS PRIVATE LIMITED VS COMMISSIONER OF CENTRAL EXCISE- 2015 (5) TMI 249 - SUPREME COURT]