Goods Inspection and Not-Exempted Responsibilities of Freight Forwarder in Iranian Commercial Law and CMR Convention

One of the freight forwarders responsibilities in carriage contract is proper transportation of goods and its delivering to receiver. If during transportation goods get lost or damaged in appearance or hiddenly, forwarding agent is accountable for their compensation according to the respective regulations. Iranian commercial Law in article 391 and the convention concerning goods international carriage contract by roads (CMR), in which Iran has taken part, in article 30 have referred to this subject. If receiver dispenses with his right on goods inspection or accepts it on no condition, this means that the goods match their bill of lading and therefore filing a suit against freight forwarder for damages in appearance will be no longer accepted unless in cases foreseen by the law. These instances according to article 391 of commercial law are limited to deception and major offense but in the convention, they are limited to deliberate transgression of duty and major offense of forwarding agent. Subject of this article is study of the above instances and their comparison. The research’s result suggests that forwarding agent’s responsibility range in Iranian commercial law is wider than that in the convention. Because from this article it is understood that in addition to forwarding agent’s deliberate transgression and major offense, deception is added to his responsibilities; an instance on which similar regulations in the conventions has no emphasis.