Holiday hold up

A ship agent was notified by their principal that a ship would arrive at the port on 30th July. The ship agent allegedly notified the port and local customs of the impending arrival on 27th July. However, for reasons unknown, the customs office never received the notification of the arrival. The individual ship agent handling the matter then went on holiday and forgot to advise anyone else in the office of the ship’s arrival or that customs approval was still outstanding.

Subsequently a follow up with customs was only carried out on 8th August when it was approved. However the ship had been held and delayed for a week. As a result demurrage was incurred.

You should try to have a system in place that allows colleagues’ emails and work to be monitored whilst they are away, so nothing important is missed. Of course, such systems will not work on every occasion, but it is good practice to have a system in place. The total claim against the ship agent was US$ 30,000 which was paid by ITIC.