TIAN Xiaokang v. Shanghai Seiyeon Air & Sea Co., Ltd.
摘要
An exporter (Meijixin) entrusted the Defendant freight forwarder to arrange for transportation of three consignments of women’s T-shirts from Shanghai to Los Angeles, to be delivered to a named consignee (U.S. RAM), which was the buyer of the T-shirts. The Defendant arranged for ocean carriage of the goods to Los Angeles, and then gave telex release orders to the ocean carrier to deliver to a consignee different from U.S. RAM, even though it had not received instructions from Meijixin to do so. Meijixin assigned to the Plaintiff its creditor’s rights to claim against the Defendant, and the Plaintiff sued the Defendant. The Court held: (1) that the assignment of creditor’s rights to the Plaintiff was valid, (2) that the Defendant had breached its obligations under the freight forwarding agreement, (3) that the losses suffered in United States dollar should be calculated in RMB at a different exchange rate from that claimed by the Plaintiff, and (4) that the Defendant should pay 70% of the losses claimed by the Plaintiff.