Shipped  Onboard date VS BL Date

Should the Shipped on Board Date and Bill of Lading Date be the same..?? 

1. Should the Shipped on Board Date and Bill of Lading Date be the same..??

2. Can a bill of lading be issued without a Shipped on Board Date..??

3. Can a bill of lading be issued without a Bill of Lading Date..??

A lot of Letters of Credit comes with a requirement as "Shipped on Board BL is required' 

For the terms of the letter of credit to be satisfied, the bill of lading should have the notation SHIPPED ON BOARD displayed on the bill of lading..

The Shipped on Board notation may be in the form of a stamp or typed in the body of the bill of lading and may or may not be shown along with a date..

Question 1 – “Should the Shipped on Board Date and Bill of Lading Date be the same“..??

The answer is NO, not necessarily..

These two dates can be the same or different.. But an important point is that the Bill of Lading date can only be after the Shipped on Board date..

For example, if the container has been Shipped on Board on 11.03.2012, the bill of lading date cannot be 10.03.2012 as the carrier is supposed to issue a bill of lading showing Shipped on Board only after the container has been physically Shipped on Board..

The bill of lading date has to be on or after the SOB date which in the below example is 12.03.2012..

Question 2 “Can a bill of lading be issued without a Shipped on Board Date..??“..??

If the shipment involves a letter of credit, then UCP600 Article 20 – Section A – sub-section ii clarifies this point quite clearly..

So if a bill of lading is issued without an SOB date  , the date of issuance of the bill of lading will be considered as the SOB date..

If a date is shown along with the Shipped on Board notation in the body of the bill of lading, then that date becomes the SOB Date 

Question 3 “Can a bill of lading be issued without a Bill of Lading Date..??“..??

Technically and legally speaking, a bill of lading shouldn’t be issued and I have never seen it issued without a date on it..

Releasing a bill of lading without a date will put the carrier at risk as the client can put any date they want and the carrier may be exposed to all sorts of claims and other issues