As the seller has to arrange the carriage it needs to know from the buyer if there is a specific point in the place of delivery to which the goods must be transported. The seller must arrange, or contract for, carriage to the named place of destination, and if there is an agreed point within that destination then to that point. The buyer’s obligation is to take delivery when the goods have been delivered as described in A2. The delivery must be made on the agreed date or within the agreed period. If the destination is a terminal then it would be usual that the seller’s carrier would unload the means of transport or arrange for that unloading, such as the container from the truck delivering it from the quay, the goods from the chartered aircraft and so on, again making it DPU not DAP. If it is the buyer’s premises or a site they have nominated then usually they would have the equipment on hand to unload the goods but sometimes the truck will have a crane mounted on it or even a forklift tucked into the rear of it, or the goods are so specialised that the seller would need to also provide the equipment to unload the goods making it DPU. The buyer could nominate say the site of a new factory they are building for their client, it could be the container terminal in the destination country, or somewhere else. DPU is the old DAT rule but expanded to mean any place to avoid the misunderstanding of the 2010 rule where many took it literally from its title to just mean a terminal, even though it meant anywhere from an open field to a covered warehouse including the buyer’s warehouse.Ī common mistake with DAP and DDP especially is the reverse of the misunderstanding with the old DAT, to believe that the destination will always be the buyer’s premises, but this need not be the case. The DPU rule goes one step further, requiring the seller to unload the goods from the arriving means of transport. This usually would be a truck but could be a train, a barge or even a ship and unlikely though it might be a chartered aircraft. The DAP and DDP rules require the seller to take on almost the maximum responsibility of placing the goods at the disposal of the buyer at the agreed destination place, or point within that place, but not unloaded from the arriving means of transport. These matters should be specified in the contract. The rules do not refer to when the payment is to be made (before shipment, immediately after shipment, thirty days after shipment, half now half later, or whatever) or how it is to be paid (prepayment, against an email of copy documents, on presentation of documents to a bank under a letter of credit, or other arrangement). In each of the rules the buyer must pay the price for the goods as stated in the contract of sale. The rules do not define what “electronic form” is, it can be anything from a pdf file to blockchain or some format yet to be developed in the future. In each of the eleven rules the seller must provide the goods and their commercial invoice as required by the contract of sale and any other evidence of conformity such as an analysis certificate or weighbridge document etc that might be relevant and specified in the contract.Įach of the rules also provides that any document can be in paper or electronic form as agreed to in the contract, or if the contract makes no mention of this then as is customary. Add to these, if the importing country charges VAT/GST on imports, unless otherwise agreed in the contract and permitted by that tax regime, the seller will pay these taxes and may not be able to recoup them. The importing country’s rules might require an importer to be a registered commercial entity in that country, there might need to be an import permit being issued and as the seller is highly unlikely to be a registered or recognised commercial entity in the importing country (not through another related entity that is itself registered there) there are likely to be all sorts of problems. This may well work fine with domestic transactions or transactions within a customs union, but for cross-ocean international trade it can be particularly problematic.Īs the opposite of EXW where the buyer must be able to carry out the export clearance formalities, with DDP the seller must be able to carry out the import clearance formalities. The seller must deliver the goods as in DAP, but this time all import clearance formalities are at the cost and risk of the seller. This rule was originally published in Incoterms® 1967 and has continued largely unchanged in its intent.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |