We work with you on the following with a Proactive approach
Standard terms and conditions are great until they get put into the “set and forget” category. Legislation requirements are constantly changing, and your terms and conditions need to evolve with them.
If your terms and conditions aren’t applicable or binding on your customers, then you may have a larger risk than anticipated on your hands (if you can’t limit your liability) and further, you may have issues with your insurer for not trading on your terms and conditions.
To ensure peace of mind, we offer a shipping commercial health check to provide you with a short risk and gap analysis. This helps you determine whether your business has the necessary policies and procedures in place to agilely respond to issues or indeed prevent them from occurring in the first place.
We can assist with you contract management to maximise your bargaining position and leave your business in a strong contractual position for the life of the tender. We take a holistic service approach to ensure you receive the best deal.
We can provide training to new staff on shipping issues, to current staff for refresher training and train them for their current job utilising your procedures and policies. Your staff are your gate-keepers to minimising risks to the company. An hour of training can save millions of dollars and avoided risk. We can ensure your staff are up to date and compliant with current policy, company expectations, customer service, commercial logistics, documentation, claims handling and more.
You may not be aware that you need a current liability assessment. This is where we provide a snapshot to the company about gaps in contracting (when you should have a contract to protect your rights but don’t) or when you’ve got legacy contract issues and you’re offering the world to customers (but shouldn’t). Giving you peace of mind and a clear map forward to minimise the risks you may not even be aware of.
If your business is a company, are you up to date on your compliance? ASIC obligations are ongoing and failure to be compliant can cause costly headaches down the road.
All shipments to / from the US require a contract lodged with the Federal Maritime Commission (“FMC”). Whilst usually they are a cut down version of the ocean carrier’s bill of lading, there is scope to customise this contract to maximise your legal position. If you ship to the US, you already have a contract; now it’s a matter of customising it to suit your business.
The shipping industry has small number of operators with high barriers to entry which make shipping a prime target for competition and cartel enforcement. Recent cases against ocean carriers demonstrate the ACCC’s current targets for enforcement. Do you have the necessary policies in place to protect you, your employees and your business? Are your employees sufficiently trained in managing their competition and anti-cartel legal obligations? We can create policies and run training to meet your compliance in this area.