Only in one area of the business is it customary to compensate customers somewhat for blameworthy delay and that is the area of transport operations/logistics and freight forwarding. In these fields, it is not unusual for operators’ standard trading conditions to offer to pay two or three times the amount of freight in compensation for delay. Not much, but better than nothing.

Why the divergence of approach? It goes back to the origins of insurance and the division of risks into marine and non-marine perils. In former times, it would have been foolish in the extreme to offer compensation for the acts of the Almighty on the high seas. Before the era of the containership docking within an hour of the advertised arrival, a great deal of leeway was called for. On land the tendency to slip up and make errors by the surface freight business was a daily risk and thus insured as a matter of course.

Today, of course, the transport of cargo from door-to-door has rendered the distinctions between marine and non-marine less polarised. A shipowner releasing cargo without first obtaining a bill of lading is a species of P&I sin.There is no insurance at all. The same act committed by a dozy shipping clerk in the dock office of a freight forwarder might be viewed as an error & omission insured under the cover given to transport operators.

None of this will be of any comfort to the 60 odd bulk carriers waiting off Newcastle. But expect a bulge of charterparty disputes between the owners and the charterers as they scrap to resolve the issue.Whose commercial risk is it anyway?