Dear Sir or Madam,

Since two or three years FIATA has repeatedly been confronted with incidents, where a freight

forwarder had issued a FIATA Forwarders Certificate of Receipt (FCR), without however disposing

actually of the goods. The results of the investigations by the FIATA Secretariat have shown

that a considerable percentage of these occurrences was based on fraudulent activities, mainly

by the seller of the goods. In some instances freight forwarders not being member of a national

freight forwarders association simply forged the FIATA FCR form. Without exception, the FCR

cases were related exclusively to steel shipments of at least several hundred up to several ten

thousands of metric tons. In all cases the buyers of the goods had relied on the FIATA FCR that

was partly also stipulated in a letter of credit, were however not able to obtain the goods,

although they had paid the purchase price in most instances.

As the number of incidents with FIATA FCRs has been increasing - in fact the Secretariat became

aware on average of one fraudulent operation of this kind per month in the recent past -

the FIATA Presidency had to decide to prohibit the issuance of FIATA FCRs for steel shipments

to prevent further damage to the reputation of the FIATA FCR as reliable freight forwarder document.

The decision was also taken with a view to the other FIATA documents, because once the

confidence in of one FIATA document is shaken, it may radiate to the other FIATA documents as

well.

For this reason you are herewith requested

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