Global transportation liability regimes, procurement impacts and responsive contract structures

Global transportation and logistics is an essential supply chain function in the 21st century. Enterprises must do well to perform or procure this function to achieve other objectives of their supply chain strategy. No sourcing of raw materials, finished goods, inventory management or customer delivery can occur without transportation and logistics. Variance due to the practical risk of loss or damage as goods transit broad geographies is one of the greatest challenges in effectively doing so. For example, harm to goods while in transit directly affects inventory levels as well as production and sale capacity. This paper examines the dominant international conventions for multimodal traffic and comparative US laws for variance in potential monetary recovery in cargo claims. It concludes with a concise summary of those liability regimes together with the contracting practices that often assist in managing global procurement across disparate international laws.