Electronic bill of lading: ideals and realities

Digitalization is regarded as one of the most prominent trends of development of global economy as well as international economic relations. Yet, the authors stress that when broken to transport and logistics digital processes tend to be uneven, fragmented, and generally too declarative. The research finds out that conservative way of thinking of the majority of market participants also hampers such transformation, which is mostly evident in global trade in hydrocarbons. In its turn, juridical unsettledness both globally and nationally of electronic turnover of transport documents at large and electronic Bill of Lading (B/L) in particular both globally and nationally also undermines the upcoming perspectives. Thus, it has been revealed that it is too early to speak about a well-­structured system of electronic document turnover (incl. B/L segment) in logistics of international trade. As of today, it has been justified that almost 95 % of international seaborne trade is covered by B/Ls. At the same time there is no commonly accepted definition of B/L or electronic B/L. So far nothing has been juridically settled with negotiability function of e-B/L. However, there is a couple of electronic platforms that facilitate the turnover of e-B/Ls. Generally they are of limited membership and geographical coverage (for instance, EU). Besides, banks’ joining the process is quite disputable despite the fact there is already the electronic version (eUCP) of ICC Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP 600). In this essence, Bolero, yet with some clauses, turns out to be the most leading platforms servicing e-B/Ls. To sum it up, the study outlines that given the lack of solid system of electronic turnover of transport documents both in organizational and juridical terms a good example of existing practices could be derived from the telex-­release technology used in liner shipping of containers and containing some traits of e-B/L ascendancies. The authors conclude that it is worth positioning the current state of affairs as paperless B/L turnover or quasi-­electronic rather than fully electronic one.