Forms and trading terms
Download
Letter of Intent and Export Power of Attorney
This is the one form we need before we can book your cargo, and you can fill it in at two in the morning without waiting for the office to open.
It does two jobs. The first page is your booking instruction: the shipping line you prefer, the loading and discharge ports, the vehicle, and the supplier, payer and consignee details. It is also the Export Power of Attorney, which is what lets us file your export declaration with US Customs on your behalf. Nobody can make that filing for you without it.
Pages 2 to 4 are the American Shipping Terms and Conditions, dated 1 August 2021. Signing page 1 confirms you have read them, which is why we publish the document whole rather than as two downloads.
Before you send it
Four things that hold a form up
A tax ID, or a passport
Any seller or exporter living in the United States must give a Tax ID or EIN. If you are a foreign buyer, we need a copy of your foreign passport instead. There is no way around this one: it is US Customs, not us.
A copy of your ID
It goes in with the form, not after it. A US ID for anyone living inside the USA, a foreign passport for a foreign entity.
A street address
For the supplier and the payer, and a full overseas address for the consignee. A PO Box is not accepted at any of the three.
Who is paying
The payer is whoever is responsible for the shipment, and everything about the transaction is disclosed to them and to nobody else. Say so on the form if that is not the supplier.
Trading terms
The terms your booking runs under
The American Shipping Terms and Conditions govern every booking we take. They are pages 2 to 4 of the form above, and the version in force is dated 1 August 2021.
The summary below is here so you know which section to open, not to replace it. The PDF is the document that counts.
- A. Scope. ASI arranges carriage with third party carriers as a freight forwarder, and is not itself the carrier of your cargo.
- B. Cost and payment. How the estimate becomes a final invoice, what can move the number, and the payment deadline that runs from the invoice date or the sailing date.
- C. Authority and release. Your warranty that you own the cargo free of any lien and may legally ship it, and the position on hazardous materials.
- D. Warranties. What ASI does and does not promise about dates, clearance times and condition on arrival, and why you are advised to arrange your own insurance.
- E. Limitation of liability. The cap on what ASI can be liable for.
- F. Law and jurisdiction. New Jersey law, and the New Jersey courts.
- G, H and I. Independent contractors, assignment and force majeure, and the entire-agreement clause.
Two more things sit outside this document and are worth knowing. Our FMC licence number is 026985NF, and our rates are published in our tariff filed with the Federal Maritime Commission. The terms of use for this website are separate again, and cover the site rather than your shipment.
Not sure which parts apply to you?
Send us the vehicle and where it is going, and we will tell you exactly what we need signed and what to attach.