The FMC’s Office of Consumer Affairs and Dispute Resolution Services “CADRS” receives numerous inquiries from ocean transportation intermediaries “OTIs” and the delivery public regarding OTI licensing necessities and nuances annually. By way of heritage, ocean transportation intermediaries providing facilities in the international trade of the US needs to be FMC authorized or registered and bonded. The Commission offers two forms of licenses: 1. Non Vessel Operating Common Carrier “NVOCC” with a U.
S. office; and 2. Freight Forwarder “FF”. Under current licensing requirements, NVOCCs must have a $75,000 bond. FF’s must hold a $50,000 bond. In addition, NVOCCs without a U.
S. office may sign in with the FMC and must hold a $150,000 bond. If the van line is authorized and the advertisements is in the name of the licensed van line, the transaction would seem like permissible. The use of the term “subcontract” in the question indicates the reverse of the ordinary agency arrangement. Generally, an agent, the unlicensed moving company, works on behalf of a licensed agency and all actions it takes are attributed to the primary, i.
e. , the approved company. The agent doesn’t be subcontracting with the valuable for all or a portion of the move—it might be performing moving activities on behalf of the licensed entity. The authorized company would have to be responsible for the cargo in its entirety e. g. , liability for loss and damage.
The shipper would must know that they are working with the authorized entity, and all documents would have to be in the name of the licensed entity e. g. delivery quotes, contracts, bills of lading, etc. . With admire to NVOCCs, there was some confusion regarding mandatory record maintaining necessities. The FMC’s Final Rule, recently followed, seeks to make clear that NVOCCs are required to hold an analogous sorts of statistics as FFs: i.
e. universal financial data, cargo files, receipts and disbursements, and contracts. FMC laws also require NVOCCs to hold copies of NSAs, amendments and associated materials as well as NRAs for a period of 5 years. Further, while the FMC doesn’t require agency agreements to be in writing, the Commission would expect to see copies of written agency agreements which are decreased to writing together with any written co loading agreements that an NVOCC could have.
