Waybill
Introduction
The contract of transportation is a contract by virtue of which a person (natural or legal) undertakes to transfer from one place to another, by land, sea, "Canal (engineering)" canals, lakes or navigable rivers or air, passengers or other people's merchandise, and to deliver these to the person to whom they are directed, in exchange for an economic consideration.
The contract of carriage may be oral; In general, it is materialized in the so-called "consignment note", the issuance of which is not mandatory, once issued it represents the legal title of the contract, it has a transcendent evidentiary utility. The parties may demand the consignment note from each other.
A transport contract regulates:
A consignment note must contain, at a minimum: name and address of the parties and other parties involved, description of the goods to be transported and their condition, agreed route, delivery time and place, signatures and date. It has two important functions: it is the evidentiary element of the transport contract and it represents the title of ownership of the merchandise.
Elements of a contract of carriage
Formal elements
The document that reflects the transport contract varies depending on the means of transport. In turn, the means of transport is chosen based on the goods that make up the shipment and other factors such as: urgency, cost, distance between the collection and delivery points...
Whatever the document, it always includes: information about the sender and recipient, date and place of loading, number of packages and their identification, description of the merchandise, gross weight and net weight, payment method (freight prepaid or freight collect). In addition, it is advisable to include the data of the consignee or intermediary transport agent, instructions for handling the merchandise, the price and complementary expenses.
In air transport, the air waybill or Air Waybill, AWB, is issued, similar to the maritime B/L.
In multimodal transport,[Note 5] by analogy with land transport, a FIATA "consignment note" is formalized).