More taking to electronic bills of lading

[LONDON] When importing a single piece of cargo by sea requires an average of 36 original documents and 240 copies from 27 parties, the only wonder is that it has taken so long for trade houses and miners to embrace electronic shipping documents.

The complexity of sea-freight transactions requiring a bill of lading, which lays out contract terms between shipper and client and gets even more cumbersome with amendments by ports and customs, explains the inertia, but also the incentive to scrap the costly paper trails and speed up commodities deals.

"Bills of lading have been around for centuries, so inevitably there is a long history of law and commercial practice associated with them. . . . (So) it is bound to take time to change to a new system," said Charlotte Winter of law firm Norton Rose Fulbright. "One of the reasons this is building momentum is you have particular trades that appear to be comfortable with electronic bills and significant parties in the market seem to be promoting their use."