The Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971 is a

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and ...

Act of Parliament Acts of Parliament, sometimes referred to as primary legislation, are texts of law passed by the legislative body of a jurisdiction (often a parliament or council). In most countries with a parliamentary system of government, acts of parliame ...

. It incorporates into English Law the Hague-Visby Rules which are to be found as the Schedule to the Act. The Act does not use the term "Hague-Visby Rules" as such; instead, the Rules are referred to in that Act as the ''"Hague Rules As Amended"''. Under Article X, the Rules apply if: :(a) the bill of lading is issued in a contracting State, or :(b) the carriage is from a port in a contracting State, or :(c) the contract (of carriage) provides that (the) Rules ... are to govern the contract". If the Rules apply, the entire text of Rules is incorporated into the contract of carriage as a "statutory contract", and any attempt to exclude the Rules is void under Article III (8). Section 3 of the Act provides that there is no

strict In mathematical writing, the term strict refers to the property of excluding equality and equivalence and often occurs in the context of inequality and monotonic functions. It is often attached to a technical term to indicate that the exclusive ...

(or absolute) duty to provide a seaworthy ship. Under the Rules, the carrier must merely ''exercise

due diligence Due diligence is the investigation or exercise of care that a reasonable business or person is normally expected to take before entering into an agreement or contract with another party or an act with a certain standard of care. It can be a ...

'', before and at the start of the voyage, to provide a seaworthy ship. The Hague-Visby Rules were amended by a protocol in 1979, but not all signatories to the Rules have adopted the amendments.

Additional UK provisions

Although Article I(c) of the Rules exempts live animals and deck cargo, section 1(7) of the Act permits parties to opt in to the Rules when the goods in the bill of lading are deck cargo or live animals. In which case, Article I(c) will be read as if it did not exist. Also, although Article III(4) declares a

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

to be a mere ''

prima facie ''Prima facie'' (; ) is a Latin expression meaning ''at first sight'' or ''based on first impression''. The literal translation would be 'at first face' or 'at first appearance', from the feminine forms of ''primus'' ('first') and ''facies'' (' ...

'' evidence of the receipt by the carrier of the goods", section 4 of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 upgrades a bill of lading to be "'' conclusive'' evidence of receipt", thereby annulling the decision in '' Grant v Norway '' 1851.

Note

The Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999 does NOT apply to contracts for the carriage of goods by sea.

References

{{reflist United Kingdom Acts of Parliament 1971 Admiralty law in the United Kingdom

Additional UK provisions

Note

See also

References