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Comments on Korean Supreme Court`s Decision regarding the Scope of Application of Himalaya Clause under the Surrendered B/L

  • DONG-A LAW REVIEW
  • 2016, (73), pp.175-213
  • Publisher : The Institute for Legal Studies Dong-A University
  • Research Area : Social Science > Law

Yang,Seok-Wan 1

1제주대학교

Accredited

ABSTRACT

On surrender of the bills, no further bill need be produced by the buyer (as consignee) and release is granted. If original bill of lading is surrendered at port of loading, a surrender message can be arranged from carrier or his agent’s office at load port to their counterpart at destination port advising them not to insist for original bill of lading from consignee to release the goods. A shipper of goods, when negotiating a contract of carriage, will be aware that the obligations arising from that contract will rarely be performed personally by the contractual carrier but will be delegated to employees of the carrier or to independent contractors engaged to carry out a particular function, such as stevedores engaged to load or discharge the cargo. Himalaya clause will be placed within the bill of lading or such other transportation contract. By such a device, the carrier or shipper attempts to cover and shield companies or persons it employs to assist in the transportation or loading or unloading of goods, with whatever liability exemptions, limitations, defences it may have with the owner of the goods. The Bill included an express clause stipulating that any servant, agent or independent contractor employed by the carrier should be entitled to the protection of every exemption available to the carrier and that, in respect of this clause, the carrier was contracting not only on his own behalf but also as agent or trustee on behalf of the parties named. Two requirements must be satisfied before such an exception will operate. First, the limitation of liability of liability clause must either expressly or impliedly extend its benefit to the employees seeking to rely on it; and, secondly, such employees must have been performing the very services provided for in the contract between their employer and the customer when the loss incurred. There is, however, one proviso in relation to contracts for the carriage of goods by sea. In such a context the statutory right to enforce a contractual provision is not intended to confer positive rights on a third party, its effect being expressly restricted to enabling a third party to avail himself of an exclusion of limitation of liability provision in such a contract.

Citation status

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