The contract calls for November shipment. The vessel is loading but will not finish in time, and the last tonnes come on board at 01:30 on 1 December. The master is asked to date the bill of lading 30 November. A couple of hours either way, who is counting. English law is counting.
The shipment period is not decorative. Breaching it can entitle the buyer to reject the goods even where quality and quantity are beyond criticism.
In Bowes v Shand, decided in 1877, the House of Lords upheld a buyer who rejected rice shipped outside the agreed March-April period. The principle has not softened since: if a period is agreed, shipment must happen inside it.
The date on a bill of lading should reflect the day on which loading of the goods it covers was actually completed. That was the approach taken in The Wilomi Tanana.
Standard forms express this differently. GAFTA 48 treats the bill of lading date as evidence of the date of shipment unless the contrary is shown. FOSFA 54 puts it more strictly, requiring conclusive evidence to the contrary.
In practice an adjusted date rarely survives alone. The statement of facts, the logbook and the surveyor's report line up against it. A document that contradicts every other record stops being evidence and becomes a problem.
Under GAFTA 48 on CIF terms the seller may use an extension of the shipment period, up to eight additional days, and the price of that extension is fixed in advance as an allowance off the contract price.
On a one million dollar contract the full extension costs at most fifteen thousand, and the first day costs five thousand. Not free, but a known, calculated and lawful number.
A tempting alternative is to split the parcel: one bill of lading in time for the bulk, and a separate later one for the remaining ten thousand tonnes out of fifty.
Issuing a second set of documents does not by itself split the parcel. The extension and its allowance apply to the whole lot unless the contract expressly divides it into separate lots with their own deadlines.
A buyer may reject the goods even after accepting the documents. Documentary rights and rights in respect of the goods are distinct, and taking up one set does not surrender the other. That was the analysis in Kwei Tek Chao.
The carrier answers for the date even where an agent actually entered it, and P&I clubs generally exclude cover for bills of lading bearing a false date. There is no one standing behind this.
Liability can become personal. In Standard Chartered Bank v Pakistan National Shipping Corp, bills of lading were dated 25 October although loading finished on 5 December. The bank paid out more than 1.15 million dollars. The House of Lords held the carrier liable in deceit and the seller's director personally liable.
There is also the resale chain. A wrong date does not stay inside one contract: it travels, and it can affect every subsequent contract down the line.
The choice is arithmetic. Either around half a percent of contract value for a lawful extension, or five thousand dollars saved against the risk of a million dollar dispute in which the bill of lading date loses to the statement of facts, the logbook and the surveyor.