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Can the consignor or the consignee request a modification of the information indicated in the CIM Consignment note?
According to Article 18 § 1 CIM, the right to subsequent modification of the contract of carriage is intrinsically linked with the consigner right to dispose with the goods based on the transport contract under Article 6 CIM. If this is the case, he is obliged to compensate the cost arise from the subsequent modifications to the carrier. However, the exercising of this right is not absolute and is only possible under certain conditions. First of all, the subsequent modification of the contract of carriage must be possible, lawful and reasonable and not impact on the normal operation of the carrier at that time nor prejudice the sender or consignees of other consignments (Article 19 § 3 CIM). These actions are specifically operational in nature and relate in particular to the specific train and/or allocated train paths with the use of the rail infrastructure. In addition, the mandatory restrictions specified in Article 19 § 4 CIM must also be observed, wherein it states that a subsequent change to the contract of carriage must not result in the division of the consignment which is explicitly mentioned in point 3 of the Appendix 7 to the CIM Consignment Note Manual of the CIT (CIT7, GLV-CIM). Based on these specific provisions mentioned above, the division and/or rerouting of the consignment in part can be practically excluded, even with the consent of the rail carrier, as the requirements of Article 19 § 4 CIM are mandatory. In the event of a modification to the contract of carriage, the actions of the rail carrier are furthermore based on the principle of legal certainty, but also protected in those cases as the consigner or the consignee in respect of Article 18 § 3 CIM has to reimburse the carrier for all costs and damages caused by the subsequent amendment (CIT7 with reference to Article 19 §§ 3-5 CIM).
So based on the UR CIM for international rail transport the parties to the contract of carriage are provided with a legal certainty by presenting the duplicate of the modified CIM Consignment note on the part of the consigner and in the case of Article 18 § 3 CIM of the consignee, which documents the subsequent modification of the contract of carriage. The acceptance and implementation of the subsequent disposal of the goods are managed in addition by the carrier in line with the instruction sheets 04-01 and 04-02 and Appendix 17 of the CIT Freight Traffic Manual (GTM-CIT). The latter summarises the individual steps on how to handle the information for the subsequent modifications in respect with the consignment note and the accompanying documents like CIT7 in the event of a change in the contract of carriage. It also assumes that the subsequent disposal does not lead to any division of the consignment, which is also correspondingly checked by the carrier in accordance with the GTM-CIT.
