consignment note

Which translation, when

Why

Consignment note translates as Frachtbrief, and the entry exists to prevent an assumption rather than to teach a word. The Frachtbrief is drawn up where the carrier demands it, signed by sender and carrier and issued in three originals, one accompanying the goods, one for the sender and one for the carrier. Its function is evidential: it serves as proof of the conclusion and the content of the contract of carriage and of the taking over of the goods by the carrier, and the Act attaches presumptions to its statements, for instance about the apparent condition of the goods. What it emphatically is not is a document of title. The paper embodies no right to the goods; transferring it transfers nothing; a bank will not treat it as security in a documentary credit the way it treats a bill of lading; and the carrier delivers to the consignee named in the document rather than against surrender of the paper. That single distinction is the reason English shipping documents must be sorted carefully before translation, because a text that calls both instruments shipping documents and a translation that renders both with one German word will suggest that road carriage offers the control a sea carriage document gives. It does not, and the international regime does not change that: cross-border road carriage uses the consignment note of the road carriage convention, the CMR-Frachtbrief in trade usage, which follows the same evidential logic. The document of title of German land carriage is a different paper altogether, the Ladeschein, which the carrier may issue instead and whose delivery to the named consignee has, where the carrier holds the goods, the same effect for acquiring rights in them as delivery of the goods themselves, § 448 HGB; the sea carriage instrument is held by the bill of lading entry.

Typical mistakes

• The Frachtbrief is a document of evidence and not of title, so treating it as negotiable or as security misdescribes what it does.
• Delivery is made to the consignee named in the document and not against its surrender, so a clause requiring presentation of the paper describes a different instrument.
• The CMR consignment note follows the same evidential logic, so an international carriage does not produce a negotiable document on the road.

What matters

Checking the documents in a German road carriage file: the review should treat the Frachtbrief as evidence of taking over and content, and look for a Konnossement only where a sea leg is involved.

Examples