‘Why such a big noise over misdirected container?'

I refer to the article headlined ‘Misdirected container raises liability issues’ (FTW July 6, 2012) and I am surprised that this unfortunate issue caused such big noise, and even the threat to take legal action against the shipping line. I am neither a maritime lawyer nor maritime adviser but a trading house and have been in the export trading business inter alia in the Middle East including Doha/Qatar for many years. I do not know which shipping line is in question but to my knowledge Doha/Qatar is not serviced by a direct call and usually via Jebel Ali/ Dubai. Best transit time is approximately 32 days. The cargo involved must be very valuable to cause such a stir and the relationship between shipper and client in Doha cannot be very close since in business, delays can happen and usually an amicable solution can be found. In today’s times shipping in all aspects is done via the internet – booking of cargo, receiving booking confirmation, giving shipping instructions once goods are loaded, approving BL when checked and found in order etc and I do not wish to say that no errors/mistakes can happen. But if the forwarder is connected via the internet to the shipping line, such an error should have shown up very quickly, especially considering the EU deadline requirements for advising container and seal number prior to stacks closing. If such are not given in time, the container will in actual fact not be loaded and moved to next vessel. These are my observations to this incident. Rikki Schumacher, Modash International Trading, Johannesburg.