There has been significant debate and discussion about the right and liabilities of parties to shipping contracts for container detention or damage charges. In the majority of cases, the parties involved are those who are knowingly parties to the transactions. However, there are also a number of cases where freight forwarders and customs brokers are named as consignees on Bills of Lading as a means to facilitate trade – even when they do not know that they are being named as consignee. The real