A Study on the Designation System of Registration Authority for Electronic Bills of Lading in Korea

A Bill of Lading, an important shipping document in international trade, has been executing indispensable functions, especially in credit transactions. However, using a Bill of Lading in international trade between parties may cause inconvenience and costs. The reason stems from a situation that does not meet the basic premise for using a Bill of Lading when the Bills of Lading arrive at the destination before the goods. However, the phenomenon of the goods arriving at destination relatively faster than documents occurs when a faster shipping speed is achieved due to the development of shipbuilding technology and navigation techniques. Therefore, a situation arises where the delivery of goods is made without producing of a Bill of Lading since the goods have arrived but the Bill of Lading has not at the destination. Korean Maritime Law, which is part 5 of the Korean Commercial Law was amended and implemented, and is effective since August 3, 2007. The one reason for the revision was to introduce an electronic Bill of Lading. The purpose of this paper is to streamline the introduction of the registration authority of the electronic Bill of Lading by studying the designation system of the registration authority under Article 862 of Korean commercial law and the related enforcement regulation, and find the problems in the designation system of the registration authority and solutions to those problems.