A Federal Maritime Commission-appointed shippers' committee including Target, DuPont and IKEA is pressing the FMC to rectify injustices arising from the system of dwell fees and demurrage, reports New York's Journal of Commerce.The FMC body, known as the National Shipping Advisory Committee (NSAC), has been asking the FMC to ensure the financial penalties are reasonable.
NSAC recommended in December that shippers should only be invoiced 25 per cent of detention and demurrage costs or a universal fee for government holds that are outside of the shipper's control and can lead to months of detainment and millions of dollars in surcharges.
The FMC, which has 60 days to respond to recommendations, said last month that reasonableness for accrued storage fees on government holds, just as any other cargo, is evaluated under the interpretive rule and whether the charges incentivise the movement of cargo.
The agency added that when two ongoing charge complaints regarding similar storage fees are resolved, they "may be instructive in further interpreting the commission's interpretive rule as it applies to government holds."
Said FMC chairman Daniel Maffe: "If customs has your box, you can't return it no matter how high that fee is. That's not incentivising you to return your cargo. So they can't charge you that fee. In my view, that's unreasonable."