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On 7 October the US Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) proposed a new rule that seeks to bring more clarity, structure, and punctuality to the demurrage and detention billing practices of ocean carriers and terminal operators. As required by the OSRA of 2022, the FMC has been mandated to implement technical requirements and specifications for D&D billings.

If the rule as described in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) is adopted, carriers and terminal operators will be required to issue bills for D&D only to parties that they have a contractual relationship with. The proposed rule should simplify the current system and ensure that only the person with the most knowledge about the shipment and who is in the best position to understand and dispute the charge receives an invoice. This would prohibit the practice of invoicing to multiple parties involved in the shipping transaction (consignee on the bill of lading for example).

With regards to the timeframe to issue D&D invoices and dispute charges, carriers and terminal operators would be required to issue invoices within 30 days after the charges stop accruing, and provide 30 days to dispute the charges with clear information about how charges should be disputed.

Among others, the FMC is proposing four additional actions in the NPRM:

• Adopting the list of minimum information that common carriers must include in demurrage or detention invoices as mandated in OSRA.
• Adding to the list additional information that must be included in or with a demurrage or detention invoice.
• Establishing billing practices that billing parties must follow when invoicing for demurrage or detention charges.

The NPRM is open for comments until 17 December. Interested parties can submit them via this link.

Source: FMC