F.D. Rose, Ph.D., Ll.D., D.C.L., Barrister, Senior Research Fellow, Commercial Law Centre, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, Visiting Professor of Maritime and Commercial Law, University of Southampton, and F.M.B. Reynolds, K.C. (Hon.), D.C.L., F.B.A., Barrister and Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple, Emeritus Fellow of Worcester College and Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Oxford. Sweet & Maxwell, London (2022) lxxix and 844 pp., plus 93 pp. Appendices and 46 pp. Index. Hardback £415.

This is the first edition of Carver on Bills of Lading since the passing of Sir Guenter Treitel, who, with Francis Reynolds, authored many successful editions of Carver on Bills of Lading, a successor to Carver on the Carriage of Goods by Sea, the content of which was split into two volumes, on Bills of Lading and later Charterparties.

This new edition consists of 11 chapters, which cover: the nature of bills of lading (Ch.1), the bill of lading as a receipt (Ch.2), as contract of carriage (Chs 3, 4 and 5) and as a document of title (Ch.6), possible effects of bills of lading on third parties (Ch.7), other related documents (Ch.8), the Hague and Hague-Visby Rules (Ch.9), the Hamburg Rules (Ch.10) and the Rotterdam Rules (Ch.11). The discussion of the bill of lading’s contractual function is divided over three chapters as follows: the bill of lading as a contractual document (Ch.3), the parties to the bill of lading contract (Ch.4) and the contractual effects of transfer of the bill of lading (Ch.5). This review focuses on the main changes and additions that were made between the text of the previous, fourth, edition and this, fifth, edition.

The fifth edition has seen some restructuring (albeit not to a very significant extent). As indicated in the Preface, the discussion of the Rotterdam Rules is now almost entirely confined to a single chapter, with (almost) all other references in the text being done away with. The review below points out the exceptions.

As is appropriate to the subject matter, an issue that the book grapples with is what exactly constitutes a bill of lading, a question which has never been fully answered with clarity by either the common law or the legislator (although a partial definition appears in the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1992). The Luna [2021] SGCA 84 enriches the discussion in Ch.1 (see especially paras 1.001–1.003). This chapter still contains some discussion of relevant provisions of the Rotterdam Rules. Its analysis of the concept of “Right of Control” is undertaken to demonstrate similarities to and differences from English law on the right of stoppage in transit as it currently stands. The comparative analysis is helpful and illuminating, although it does not discuss the concept of the “documentary shipper” (see Art.1(9) and Art.51(a) of the Rules), which is instead discussed comprehensively in Ch.11 (esp. para.11.040).