Bill of Lading

The Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992 is the modern statutory framework governing bills of lading, sea waybills and ship's delivery orders, and section 1 defines each. Transferability is central to the definition: the Act provides that references to a bill of lading “do not include references to a document which is incapable of transfer either by indorsement or, as a bearer bill, by delivery without indorsement; but” it goes on to confirm that the definition does capture the common commercial variant issued before goods are loaded, since it states, “subject to that, do include references to a received for shipment bill of lading.”

The Act distinguishes a bill of lading from the two other shipping documents it covers. Both a sea waybill and a ship's delivery order are defined by contrast with a bill of lading: for example, “References in this Act to a ship's delivery order are references to any document which is neither a bill of lading nor a sea waybill” but which contains a carrier's undertaking to deliver the goods to a named person. The feature that separates a bill of lading from these alternatives is its transferability by indorsement or bearer delivery, which is what allows a bill of lading, unlike a waybill or delivery order, to function as a document of title capable of passing rights in the goods to a third party.