3.4 The receiver and the sea way bill
The position of the receiver has been mentioned above. A summary may be useful.
The receiver may be the sender (typically: the fob-buyer is party to the transport agreement), and will be named as receiver in the sea way bill.
When the receiver is not the sender, his position may depend upon his being originally named in the sea way bill (typically: he is a cif-buyer). His rights are derived from the sender; he cannot have better rights, but the opposite is possible: the sender may decide to transfer less than all of his rights to the receiver. The right to get the possession of the cargo may be subject to payment of freight. But the receiver’s obligation to pay may depend on whether he has actually received the goods, see Section 269 paragraph two:
“If the goods were delivered otherwise than against a bill of lading, the receiver is only liable to pay freight and other claims according to the contract of carriage if the receiver had notice of the claim at the time of delivery or was aware or ought to have been aware that the carrier had not received payment.”
The originally named receiver may lose this status as a result of the sender’s instruction to deliver the goods “to someone other than the consignee named in the document” (Section 308 paragraph two). What is said above applies equally to the new named receiver. The original one has obtained no rights as against the carrier, and is therefore obliged to accept the change. As regards the relationship between the first named receiver and the sender, the change may very well be a breach of their agreement – typically a sales agreement.