Consignee

In a contract of carriage, the consignee is the entity who is financially responsible (the buyer) for the receipt of a shipment. Generally, but not always, the consignee is the same as the receiver.

If a sender dispatches an item to a receiver via a delivery service, the sender is the consignor, the recipient is the consignee, and the deliverer is the carrier.

A brief statement of law

This is a difficult area of law in that it regulates the mass transportation industry which cannot always guarantee arrival on time or that goods will not be damaged in the course of transit. Furthermore, two other problems are that unpaid consignors or freight carriers may wish to hold goods until payment is made, and fraudulent individuals may seek to take delivery in place of the legitimate consignees. The key to resolving such disputes lies in the documentation. The standard form of contract is a bill of lading which, in international shipping law, is simply a contract for the carriage of goods entered into between the shipper and the carrier that is not a charter party. It is always a term of that contract that the carrier must deliver the goods to a specific receiver.