It has been observed that BL questions come frequently in the DCC, although not each year. Most importantly wheover wants to dive into the real world of chartering the knowledge of BL is must. And for the ICS PQE exam knowledge of BL is absolutely important not only for the dry Cargo chartering (DCC) subject but also for other subjects like Tanker Chartering, Legal Principles, Operation and so on. So it is absolutely worth studying.

Now the most important element regarding study of the BL, specially for the DCC exam, is knowing it’s 3 core functions and having the ability to comment on those functions. The three functions are:

1. Receipt
2. Title of Goods
3. Evidence of Contract

Almost all the questions that appeared in the DCC exam regarding BL it includes description of those 3 functions in some way or other.

And typically there is a second part of the question which mainly about practical issue which arises during comercial that charterer making some request and what shall owner do in that situation. And there are three issues which often appeared in the exam:

• Request to Discharge Cargo against Letter of Indemnity LOI without production of the Original BL
• What to do when charterer request to issue Clean BL against LOI, and
• What to do when charterer reqeusto to issue predated BL (dating BL before the actual date of completion)

To read how you shall address this in answer paper you can read more by clicking here.