Among the ‘lowest-hanging fruit’ in digitalising the logistics sector, eBLs would dramatically reduce paperwork and, it is thought, the manpower required to process it. However, a universal standard for eBLs must first be established. This would include agreement on the necessary details, as wel...

The UK government’s tax body warned yesterday that “more than 3,500 businesses risk significant delays” if they did not migrate to the Customs Declaration Service (CDS) before it switches off the current platform, Customs Handling Import and Export Freight (CHIEF), on 30 September. Director of...

Congressmen Payne, DeFazio, Scott and Costa introduced a new Freight Rail Shipping Fair Market Act, which will seek to address perceived excesses in the American rail sector. A gift to rail unions, after President Joe Biden signed an executive order to prevent strike action last month, the bill seek...

He said his confidence in the integrity of the contract business, which now represents some 70% of of the carrier’s volumes, was in the make-up of its top-200 client portfolio. Mr Skou said: “What’s important to understand when you look at our portfolio today is that it is heavily weighted tow...

The new regime begins on 8 August. The shipping line said previous moves to resolve the backlog had proved insufficient, adding: “We had until now focused on draying containers with no activity for more than 14 days. “Unfortunately, persistent congestion continues to impact operations in our key...

Maersk has followed Hapag-Lloyd in upgrading its profit outlook again, as the hopes of shippers for any early return to some form of normalisation are dashed by port congestion and intermodal bottlenecks on the world’s tradelanes. Maersk’s Q2 revenue was $21.7bn, compared with Q1 turnover of $19...

The development will establish ‘a body with teeth’ to enforce the OSRA 22 initiative signed into law by President Biden in June. The Bureau will comprise an Office of Enforcement, Office of Investigations and an Office of Compliance. An attorney in the senior executive service, with regulat...

Singapore’s Global Centre for Maritime Decarbonisation (GCMD) has launched an $18m supply chain integrity project after fears that some biofuels are leading to deforestation and worse impacts on the environment. As the world bunkering capital, the involvement of Singapore in clarifying the biofuel...

In an earnings call, which showed how wide the Amazon business reaches, there was little of note for the transport and logistics industry. Of the $60bn spent on capital investments, some $15bn went on transport, but no further details were available. CFO Brian Olsavsky said: “For the second quarte...

DB Schenker reported today that volumes in the first half had shrunk by 5.4% in air, 3.4% in sea and 5.5% in land, year on year. Yet total sales increased 35%, to €14.1bn, adjusted ebitda rose 64%, to €1.48bn, and adjusted ebit went up 91.3%, to €1.18bn. The German forwarder, whose earnings ar...