Types of carrier of goods

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
Produced in partnership with Quentin Tannock of 4 Pump Court , James Watthey of 4 Pump Court and Aphiwan Natasha King of 4 Pump Court
Practice notes

Types of carrier of goods

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis

Produced in partnership with Quentin Tannock of 4 Pump Court , James Watthey of 4 Pump Court and Aphiwan Natasha King of 4 Pump Court

Practice notes
imgtext

This Practice Note provides an introduction to two types of cargo Carrier; common carriers and private carriers, and explains the key aspects of their respective liabilities under their contractual relationships. The Practice Note concerns the carriage of Goods only, and not the carriage of passengers.

Definition of carrier

A ‘carrier’ can be simply defined as a person who carries cargo (or indeed carries passengers, but passenger carriage is outside the scope of this Practice Note) for the benefit of other persons, whether gratuitously or for payment (or ‘reward’).

The types of carrier are:

  1. •

    common carriers

  2. •

    private carriers

  3. •

    other types of carriers with special rights and duties

For the avoidance of doubt, the following are not carriers:

  1. •

    stevedores

  2. •

    forwarding agents who merely arrange or procure carriage by others

While they are not carriers for the purposes of this Practice Note, it is worth mentioning that logistics companies will often contract with their clients

Quentin Tannock
Quentin Tannock

4 Pump Court

Quentin Tannock has a commercial practice with a strong focus on advocacy. Quentin acts and advises on a broad spectrum of disputes across a range of industry sectors, for example, including insurance, financial services and professional negligence. While his practice has a focus on high value disputes, Quentin's clients range in size from the Fortune 100 through to SMEs. Quentin's background is in law and business, including commercial arbitration, venture capital investments and the provision of IP related strategy and policy advice to multinational corporations and international organisations. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Lauterpacht Centre in the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge and gave a series of lectures on IP and business to science master’s students at the University of Cambridge.

Read moreRead more
James Watthey
James Watthey

Barrister, 4 Pump Court

James is an experienced commercial barrister handling heavyweight international arbitration and litigation. James focuses on charterparty disputes, cargo claims, sale and purchase, shipbuilding disputes, international trade and marine insurance. In addition to LMAA, LCIA, SIAC, ICC and other institutional and ad hoc arbitrations all around the world, he also frequently handles disputes in the Commercial Court and the Admiralty Court, as well as other divisions of the High Court. He has particular experience of international actions involving jurisdictional disputes. James also has experience in mediation and as an Arbitrator and expert in English law in foreign proceedings. His arbitration practice includes both substantive proceedings and challenges under the Arbitration Act 1996, on grounds such as want of jurisdiction, apparent bias, serious irregularity and errors of law. More recently, he has handled a lot more commodities and energy related shipping disputes. He also works on Admiralty matters and is widely regarded as pre-eminent in the superyacht market. Increasingly, he is being sought after as an arbitrator.

Read moreRead more
Aphiwan Natasha King
Aphiwan Natasha King

Barrister, 4 Pump Court

Natasha King is a barrister at 4 Pump Court. She is developing a broad practice across all of Chambers’ areas of expertise, including commercial litigation and international arbitration.

Natasha has a first class degree in commerce from the University of Melbourne, a first class degree in law from the University of Cambridge, and a specialist LL.M. in international business and economic law from Georgetown University. She has won multiple academic awards and prizes, including the top scholarship awarded by Lincoln’s Inn for the bar course.

Before coming to the Bar, Natasha served as a dispute settlement lawyer in the Legal Affairs Division of the World Trade Organization for three years, advising panelists on State-to-State disputes. She has written several publications on issues of international trade law, international investment law, and international commercial arbitration. She also writes for and assists on the editorial team of Opinio Juris, a leading public international law blog.

Natasha is regularly instructed in complex shipping disputes, frequently with an international element. Prior to coming to the Bar, Natasha worked on a major international trade dispute involving the imposition of economic embargos at ports in the Middle East. She has previous experience in LMAA arbitrations and shipping cases involving economic sanctions and the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

Read moreRead more
Powered by Lexis+®
Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
Carrier definition
What does Carrier mean?

Carriers are persons who carry persons or goods either for profit or gratuitously.

Read more

Popular documents

Goods—delivery and acceptance

Goods—delivery and acceptanceThis Practice Note considers statutory laws in relation to the delivery and acceptance of goods in sale of goods contracts in a business to business context. It highlights the relevant provisions of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and discusses common issues in sale of goods

Goods—property, title and risk

Goods—property, title and riskThis Practice Note considers the point at which property, title and risk pass from a seller to a buyer in a business to business (B2B) sale of goods transaction depending upon the nature of the goods, the intention of the parties, the terms of the contract to which the

Consignment stock agreement—review and negotiation guide

Consignment stock agreement—review and negotiation guideScope and purposeThis Practice Note is prepared to assist with the review and/or negotiation of a consignment stock agreement, and accompanies Precedents: Consignment stock agreement—pro-customer and Consignment stock agreement—pro-supplier.A

Carriage of goods by sea—the Hague-Visby Rules

Carriage of goods by sea—the Hague-Visby RulesThis Practice Note explains the Hague-Visby rules (the Rules) which are an international convention enacted into English law by the Carriage of goods by Sea Act 1971 (CGSA 1971) whose purpose is to regulate some of the most important rights and