Electronic Document Interchange

Updated:
17 October 2002

Website note:
The Electronic Communications and Transactions Act, No. 25 of 2002, was assented to and signed by the President on 31 July 2002 and published in the Government Gazette No. 23708 on 2 August 2002.
The text is available here in PDF format.
For more information about this Act, which is not yet in operation, please see the Parliamentary Web Site.

ELECTRONIC DOCUMENT INTERCHANGE (EDI)

Introduction

The shipping industry is taking a pro-active role in developing the use of electronic commerce. Driven by UNCITRAL and by the CMI, and energetically promoted by commercial EDI schemes such as BOLERO, it is a particularly rewarding area for research. For there remain many questions for the law to answer before commerce generally is comfortable with replacing such hallowed institutions as the negotiable Bill of Lading altogether. Not for nothing did the US court describe the Bill of Lading as a document of dignity [The Carso 43 F.2d 736 AMC].

We will monitor EDI developments and encourage research. Please help us build these pages by letting us have useful links which you may find.

We should note also that SA has a recent Act dealing with Sea Transport Documents. The full text of the updated Act is available on the Parliamentary website in .pdf format.

"Perhaps the biggest challenge facing the CMI is one of perceptions and paradigms. As we are fast being catapulted into the 21st century and beyond by the adrenalin rush of a cyberage, surely it must be each and everyone of the users of the system [EDI] who must facilitate the development of an internationally acceptable norm, effective for use globally in the trade and carriage of commodities." --
[Shipping Law LLM student in the 1997 final "Carriage of Goods by Sea" examination, concluding a discussion of the challenges EDI presents to the shipping lawyer of the future to preserve the form and effect of the bill of lading of the present.]

Links to related information

An excellent June '98 article on the electronic bill of lading is Livermore J. et al, "Electronic Bills of Lading and Functional Equivalence"; 1998 (2) The Journal of Information, Law and Technology (JILT). The article includes a sample electronic bill of lading.
The Comite Maritime International has prepared and adopted a set of EDI Rules to serve as a guide to jurisdictions and individuals wishing to make use of EDI. With the consent of the CMI we have the full text of the CMI Rules for Electronic Bills of Lading on site.
UNCITRAL has adopted Model Law for the use of electronic commerce, on which see their news release, Ref. GA/L/3000.

UNCITRAL's home page has the text of UNCITRAL's Model Law on Electronic Commerce.
An excellent and regularly updated source of EDI developments is maintained by Canadian attorney Peter Jones at Translink. Translink's mission is to assist Net Surfers to access information and commentary on the emerging issues of electronic commerce.
Our students have recently completed research papers on EDI (full text will be available on site soon):
- The Impact of EDI on Bills of Lading - A Global Perspective on the Dynamics Involved by Erik Muthow is a detailed review of developments in the field of EDI to date, undertaken as a minor dissertation to complete Erik's LLM. The full text is available.
- EDI and the Traditional Bill of Lading by Edmund Greiner is a shorter summary of EDI and the technical and legal problems it faces. This is a LLB research paper and the full text is available.
BOLERO is a well developed commercial Bill of Lading depository with a most informative site giving details of its development and operation.
Information about BOLERO Association