Article 14 of Law 15/2009, of November 11, on the contract for the land transport of goods, establishes the obligation to formalize a contract for the continued transport of goods by road with the carrier when there is a continuous relationship over time.
As a first important concept, continuous transport will be understood as that relationship in which (art. 8 LCTTM): “the carrier is obliged to the same shipper to make a plurality of shipments successively over time.”
Said contract must be formalized in writing, must include the price as a mandatory mention, and comply with the contractual requirements so that it can legally be considered a contract.
But what happens if there is no contract? Firstly, the corresponding administrative sanctions will be applied; Secondly, its absence in writing will not produce its non-existence or nullity, since it has evidentiary effects.
Furthermore, if the contract does not exist because one of the parties has refused to formalize it, the party may be deemed to have withdrawn from the contract and the complying party will be entitled to claim compensation for damages that may apply.
There are two types of contracts depending on the agreed term:
– Continuous transportation contract with a defined term: it will end with the end of the agreed term or after its extensions and/or agreed termination.
– Continuous transport contract without or non-existent term: it will be understood to be indefinite. The party that wants to terminate it must respect a notice of 30 calendar days. Failure to comply with this notice may entail compensation.
In practice, the idea of the continuous transportation contract is that it serves as a framework for the consignment letters that are issued for each trip, which will specify the terms and conditions of each shipment. Furthermore, I recommend taking advantage of the signing of these contracts to establish the distribution of obligations, responsibilities and limits of custody of the merchandise that corresponds to each subject of the chain (making the merchandise available, loading/unloading schedules, prohibition of subcontracting, prohibition of the driver from participating in loading/unloading operations, etc.).
Now, does a loading order serve as a contract? It depends on whether it meets the civil requirements to be considered a contract and whether it includes all the mandatory mentions to be considered a continuous transportation contract. And, an invoice? Definitely not.
Finally, the distribution of expenses and damages arising from the inaccuracy or insufficiency of the data that must be included in the contract will be between the shipper and the carrier. We leave you a table where we show the distribution of responsibilities and amount of sanctions.
For more information:
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Article owned by Núria Alquézar Sánchez
