A consignee is a person or entity to which goods are consigned. In a contract of carriage, the consignee is the

entity An entity is something that Existence, exists as itself. It does not need to be of material existence. In particular, abstractions and legal fictions are usually regarded as entities. In general, there is also no presumption that an entity is Lif ...

who is financially responsible (the buyer) for the receipt of a

shipment Freight transport, also referred to as freight forwarding, is the physical process of transporting commodities and merchandise goods and cargo. The term shipping originally referred to transport by sea but in American English, it has been exte ...

. If a sender dispatches an item to a receiver via a delivery service, the sender is the ''

consignor The consignor is the party to a contract that dispatches goods to another party on consignment. In a contract of carriage, is the party A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a Hospitality, host for the purposes of ...

'', the recipient is the ''consignee'', and the deliverer is the '' carrier''.

A brief statement of law

This is a difficult area of

law Law is a set of rules that are created and are enforceable by social or governmental institutions to regulate behavior, with its precise definition a matter of longstanding debate. It has been variously described as a science and as the ar ...

, in that it regulates the mass

transport Transport (in British English) or transportation (in American English) is the intentional Motion, movement of humans, animals, and cargo, goods from one location to another. Mode of transport, Modes of transport include aviation, air, land tr ...

ation industry, which cannot always guarantee arrival on time or that

goods In economics, goods are anything that is good, usually in the sense that it provides welfare or utility to someone. Alan V. Deardorff, 2006. ''Terms Of Trade: Glossary of International Economics'', World Scientific. Online version: Deardorffs ...

will not be damaged in the course of transit. Two other problems are that unpaid consignors or

freight In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in ...

carriers may wish to hold goods until payment is made, and that fraudulent individuals may seek to take delivery in place of the legitimate consignees. The key to resolving such disputes lies in the

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance, and use. As a form of knowledge managem ...

. The standard form of contract is a

bill of lading A bill of lading () (sometimes abbreviated as B/L or BOL) is a document issued by a common carrier, carrier (or their Law of agency, agent) to acknowledge receipt of cargo for shipment. Although the term is historically related only to Contract of ...

which, in international shipping law, is simply a contract for the carriage of goods entered into between the shipper and the carrier that is not a charter party. It is always a term of that contract that the carrier must deliver the goods to a specific receiver.

Documentation and legal requirements for delivery

Straight bills of lading by land or sea, or air waybill are not documents of title to the goods that they represent. They do no more than require delivery of the goods to the named consignee and (subject to the shipper's ability to redirect the goods) to no other. This differs from "order" or "bearer" bills of lading, which are possessory title documents and negotiable, i.e. they can be endorsed and so transfer the right to take delivery to the last endorsee. This aspect of shipping law is regulated by the

Hague Rules The Hague Rules of 1924 (formally the "International Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading, and Protocol of Signature") is an international convention to impose minimum standards upon commercial carri ...

, and the laws of individual countries, e.g. the UK Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 and the U.S. Pomerene Act 1916. There is some international dispute as to whether the consignee on a straight bill must produce the bill in order to take delivery. The U.S. position is that the person taking delivery must prove his or her identity but, as in

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

, there is no need to present the bill itself. In the UK there are conflicting '' obiter dicta'' in "The Rafaela S" 0032 Lloyd's Rep. 113 and "The Happy Ranger"

002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to: Airports *0O2, Baker Airport *O02, Nervino Airport Astronomy *1996 OO2, the minor planet 7499 L'Aquila *1990 OO2, the asteroid 9175 Graun Fiction *002, fictional British 00 Agent *''002 Operazione Luna'' ...

2 AER (Comm) 23, so the matter must remain unclear even though there are serious problems, for example, arising from the everyday occurrence of

cargo In transportation, cargo refers to goods transported by land, water or air, while freight refers to its conveyance. In economics, freight refers to goods transported at a freight rate for commercial gain. The term cargo is also used in cas ...

being discharged against letters of indemnity when original bills of lading are not yet available to be presented at the discharge

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Hamburg, Manch ...

Consignee rights

The rights of the consignee under an air waybill are regulated by the Warsaw Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, 1929 and the Montreal Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air 1999 and the relevant state laws (which may be one law chosen as the proper law by the parties, or any combination of laws representing the seller, buyer, consignor, and carrier.) This is very important as per export documents. The receiver can be different than that of the consignee.

References

{{Reflist Freight transport Legal documents Contract law Transport law