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TT Club defends box weight rule - 'responsibilities and risks are quite clear'
DESPITE expressions of confusion in the shipping community, Peregrine Storrs-Fox, risk management director at the insurer TT Club, says responsibility for providing container weights, or verified gross mass (VGM), is quite clear.
Taking issue with a recent report in the Hong Kong Shipping Gazette, suggesting that no one appeared to be policing the supposedly "verified gross mass" of container weight, but merely accepting as verified, the declaration by the shipper, Mr Storrs-Fox differed:
"Responsibility clearly gives rise to liabilities, which are simple and clear: not providing VGM [verified gross mass] in a timely fashion may well result in additional costs and delay, providing incorrect VGM information may expose the forwarder to fiscal penalties," he said.
"Accurate weight has always been required, but overlooked in enough instances for the IMO [the UN's International Maritime Organisation] to adopt - in November 2014 - a clear definition of what comprises 'verified gross mass' for sea carriage purposes, being the entire unit that is presented for ocean carriage.
"Inevitably, this requires changes to systems and processes in order to obtain and communicate the VGM.
"Since the regulation also requires weighing using calibrated and certified equipment, national bodies need to engage. However, 'accurate' is not hugely unclear; an attitude that plans to run to any margin of acceptability - as with chancing a 10 per cent tolerance for road speed limits - is simply a plan to breach the law.
The mature and prudent approach is to make every effort to provide accurate information.
Taking issue with a recent report in the Hong Kong Shipping Gazette, suggesting that no one appeared to be policing the supposedly "verified gross mass" of container weight, but merely accepting as verified, the declaration by the shipper, Mr Storrs-Fox differed:
"Responsibility clearly gives rise to liabilities, which are simple and clear: not providing VGM [verified gross mass] in a timely fashion may well result in additional costs and delay, providing incorrect VGM information may expose the forwarder to fiscal penalties," he said.
"Accurate weight has always been required, but overlooked in enough instances for the IMO [the UN's International Maritime Organisation] to adopt - in November 2014 - a clear definition of what comprises 'verified gross mass' for sea carriage purposes, being the entire unit that is presented for ocean carriage.
"Inevitably, this requires changes to systems and processes in order to obtain and communicate the VGM.
"Since the regulation also requires weighing using calibrated and certified equipment, national bodies need to engage. However, 'accurate' is not hugely unclear; an attitude that plans to run to any margin of acceptability - as with chancing a 10 per cent tolerance for road speed limits - is simply a plan to breach the law.
The mature and prudent approach is to make every effort to provide accurate information.
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