1. An English seller had sold sugar c.i.f. a certain Arab port. So had a German seller. Coincidentally, both instructed the same German forwarding agent (he may be called “A”) to take care of the sea transportation. (Hereinafter the situation is described in a simplified manner.) The German forwarder A instructed another German forwarder (“B”) to care for the cargo. B subsequently booked both sellers’ cargo with the same shipping line. The freight charged by A was paid by the seller to A, and by A to B. The containers were loaded on board a vessel and carried to their destination under identical bill of lading forms. B did not pay the freight to the shipping line as in the meantime he had gone bankrupt. Since the bills of lading showed, in the box named “shipper”, the name of the respective seller, the carrier sued both sellers for payment of freight, the one in London, the other one in Berlin. The English court of first instance allowed the claim. The Court of Appeal, upon appeal, disallowed it. The Berlin court also rejected it.

2. Before explaining the reasoning of the courts, some background should be given. A forwarding agent, under German law in certain cases “has exclusively the rights and