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CIM Working Group with new challenges under new chairmanship

The 36th meeting of the CIT CIM Working Group was held on 26 and 27 of June 2024 in Bern at CIT under new chair Carola Folch von Sydow from DB. The main item on the agenda was to find a new legal solution for the expectations of CIT members in the substitute carriage model. The meeting was also dedicated to further thinking on the possible CIM UR revision under the new OTIF work programme for 2025-2027. The megatrend of multimodality was also a highlight of the CIM Working Group’s agenda.

Liberalisation of the substitute carriage model

In order to keep developing and adapting the CIT freight traffic products and to meet the market needs of CIT members, the CIM Working Group (WG CIM) undertook further clarification to create legal certainty at the interface between the contractual carrier and successive carrier with the substitute carrier, including for possible cascading between the substitute carriers. CIT presented the WG CIM with two proposed options for the contractual relationship with the substitute carrier(s):

i) Boilerplate contract for substitute carriage based on the format of the boilerplate contract for subcontracting used in combined transport with the additional possibility for legal cascading between subcontractors, and/or

ii) Standard clause that would be included in all subcontracting contracts, which would allow for the inclusion of a minimum number of uniform and harmonised rules in these sequential substitute contracts.

These new CIT products for substitute carriage will also supplement the General Terms and Conditions for subcontracting, or at least continue to represent a harmonised contractual basis if the General Terms and Conditions do not apply.

The CIT proposal discussed and unanimously supported delivers two further significant legal advantages:

i) it provides a practical example of the revision of the definition of substitute carrier in article 3b CIM whereby “substitute carrier” means a carrier, who has not concluded the contract of carriage with the consignor, but to whom the carrier referred to in letter a) another carrier involved in the performance of the contract of carriage has entrusted in whole or in part, the performance of the carriage by rail;” The proposed amendment to the wording of article 3 b) CIM caters for the practical needs of modern international rail freight in a straightforward manner and will allow the emergence in the rail sector of contractual hierarchies and cascades such as have existed in other transport modes for many years and in the national laws of the COTIF member states. This will help ensure a level playing field in terms of inter-modal competition.

ii) it provides a legal basis for the individual services of individual CIT members to be provided for in sales and purchase contracts in a standardised manner, namely in Annex 1 to the boilerplate contract or in a standard clause.

Multimodality

The megatrend of multimodality is once again of great importance in the work of the working group, particularly in the international transport of waste and dangerous goods. Rail carriers have to overcome numerous legal, operational and technical problems in the multimodal transport of waste. Specific challenges have been identified in the planning, organisation and provision of multimodal carriage, especially in the relationship between the rail carrier and the carriers responsible for other modes of transport (terminals, sea and inland waterway ports, etc.). In response to these, CIT has developed two new products designed to quickly provide CIT members with a legal remedy:

i) The purpose of the optional checklist for reporting irregularities in the international carriage of goods by rail is to improve the quality and efficiency of these international rail movements. The checklist also reduces costs by supporting the standardised evaluation and interpretation of irregularities encountered during carriage and enabling multilingual communication in real time between railway undertakings. The checklist also allows for the introduction of standardised procedures at national and international levels for identifying, reporting and rectifying irregularities in the international carriage of dangerous goods (RID) and/or the cross-border carriage of waste.

ii) The Waste Transport Information Sheet contains a description of all the points to be checked when preparing and organising the carriage of waste by rail. This document will help to streamline operations and promote a unified understanding among rail carriers of the carriage of waste by rail.