Don’t cut corners and limit your liability as much as possible.That’s the advice from Quintus van der Merwe, partner at Shepstone & Wylie, to shippers across the world who are all trying to make sense of the “new normal” trading environment.As low volumes and high freight rates dominated in markets fraught with volatility, he said 2020 had proved to be disconcerting in many ways – highlighting how few in the industry really understood the concept of risk and had therefore planned accordingly.“In South Africa, the customs act casts liability very widely over who is an importer and who is the exporter,” he explained, indicating that more often than not there was very little understanding or certainty over who carried the risk. “There are cases that run into billions of rands where parties are completely ignorant of the risk they have exposed themselves to.”
