A Review of Cargo Crime in 2021

Written by Andrew Johnson & featured in the American Journal of Transportation Imagine you have spent six months planning and bidding the transportation of a large piece of equipment. The shipment travels from origin to port and is loaded onto an awaiting vessel for the ocean voyage to the destination port. The equipment is offloaded to a railcar at the destination port, surveyed, and tied down with no apparent damages. Upon arrival at the rail siding, you are notified of paint transfer and un-determined damage to the equipment. Your first step is to notify the cargo owner so they aren’t […]

In the absence of shipper’s interest cargo insurance to protect the cargo owner against financial loss, carrier’s liability is all that remains, and cargo owners are often disappointed by the all-too-common misconception that the carrier will fully cover their loss. They might even ask the logistics service provider, “They’re going to pay for this, right?” Such misconceptions are mainly present in claims scenarios when negligence seems evident, or a party has admitted fault. Ultimately, the cargo owner is appalled by a nominal award amount that falls far short of the owner’s financial loss. In an article on American Shipper, Roanoke […]

On the open sea cargo losses happen. Every year, 100s of millions of cargo containers carrying goods valued into the trillions of dollars crisscross the ocean on ships. Transporting these goods safely requires proper packing, stowage, container weight, and securing of containers, but even when all these measures are carried out to perfection, containers get lost at sea. Severe weather and rough seas along with rare events such as ship groundings, structural failures, and collisions can cause significant losses. 2021 World Shipping Council “Containers Lost at Sea” Report The WSC in its report noted an usually high number of weather-related […]