Cargo Lost, Damaged or Delayed in Shipping — Or Unpaid Freight and Demurrage

"Something went wrong with my shipment" can mean several legally distinct things: cargo that never arrived, cargo that arrived damaged, cargo that arrived very late, or — the reverse situation — a carrier withholding delivery of your goods until freight or demurrage is paid. Each has a different starting point, so it's worth pinning down which one (or which combination) you're actually facing before anything else.

If your goods are damaged or missing, the clock that matters is the notice-and-claim timeline below. If a carrier is refusing to release cargo over unpaid charges, the relevant question is what leverage the carrier actually has under the contract and the statute, covered further down.

The bill of lading is the central document in a UAE cargo dispute: under the statute, the carrier is required to deliver the goods against production of the original bill of lading, and it functions as the carrier's own record of what it received and undertook to carry. Keep the original and every copy, along with the booking confirmation, packing list, commercial invoice and any correspondence with the carrier or its agent.

If the goods are damaged, photograph the damage and the packaging before anything is moved, unpacked or discarded, and try to get a joint inspection or survey report with the carrier's representative present — a one-sided description of damage carries far less weight than a document both sides signed off on.

Commentary on the new maritime law consistently describes a short notice window for cargo damage — apparent damage flagged at or before delivery, and non-apparent (latent) damage given in writing within a small number of working days after delivery — with a failure to give timely notice creating a presumption that the goods arrived in the condition the bill of lading described. This figure is commonly cited by shipping-law practitioners but was not independently confirmed against the statute's full text for this page, so treat the exact day-count as indicative rather than settled, and get it confirmed by a lawyer immediately rather than relying on it yourself.

Whatever the precise window turns out to be, the practical lesson is the same either way: send written notice of the damage or shortage to the carrier as soon as you discover it, by email as well as any other channel, and do not wait to "see if it matters" — a late notice can shift the burden of proof against you before your claim is even assessed.

The new law is commonly described as putting the burden on the carrier, not you, to show that an exception applies once your goods are shown to have been damaged, lost or delayed within the carrier's period of responsibility — a presumption of carrier fault rather than the reverse. Carriers are also commonly described as having a defined, non-exhaustive set of defences available, such as an act of God, perils of the sea, war, strikes, the shipper's own negligence, or an inherent defect in the goods, though whether the traditional "error in navigation" defence still survives under the new law specifically was not established in researching this page and should not be assumed either way.

You will also see a specific per-package or per-kilogram compensation cap quoted online and by advisers — commonly cited as a fixed SDR figure per package or unit, or a separate rate per kilogram of gross weight, whichever produces the higher figure. This page deliberately does not present that number as confirmed, settled UAE law: it is repeated consistently across secondary commentary but was not independently verified against the primary statute text for this page, and a wrong number on something this consequential is worse than no number at all. Ask your lawyer to confirm the exact figure — and whether it applies at all to your shipment — directly from the statute before relying on it.

That cargo-specific cap is also a completely different thing from a separate, general limitation figure in the same law that caps a shipowner's overall exposure across an entire incident by reference to the vessel's tonnage, not by cargo package. If you see large, round SDR figures discussed in relation to this law, ask which regime they actually belong to — the two are easy to conflate and are not interchangeable.

Cargo claims under UAE maritime law are commonly described as subject to their own, comparatively short limitation period — around one year from the date of delivery, or from the date delivery should have occurred — running separately from the general commercial limitation periods used for ordinary contract disputes elsewhere in the UAE. As with the figures above, this is consistently repeated across shipping-law commentary but was not independently confirmed against the primary statute text for this page, so treat it as a strong reason to move quickly and get it verified rather than as a number to plan around unconfirmed.

Because this is meaningfully shorter than limitation periods people are used to from other kinds of UAE disputes, the practical instruction is simple: don't sit on a cargo claim while you negotiate informally with the carrier, and get a lawyer to confirm the actual deadline against your specific delivery date as early as possible.

A carrier's ability to withhold your cargo pending payment of freight is something the statute is understood to support in substance, but the specific article, scope and exercise-mechanics of that right were not established in researching this page — so it should be described only generally, as a mechanism carriers commonly rely on both contractually and under UAE law, rather than with a specific legal citation you can rely on unassisted. Separately, and more concretely, the statute directly establishes a maritime lien over the vessel itself (not the cargo) for a ranked list of debts, which is a distinct legal mechanism worth not confusing with a cargo-retention right.

Demurrage disputes are, in practice, primarily governed by what your charterparty or bill of lading actually says — the agreed or customary laytime, the daily rate, and when the clock starts running once the vessel is ready to load or discharge. The statute is understood to supply a default timing framework (readiness, laytime commencement, extension against compensation) that fills gaps where the contract is silent, but it does not itself fix a demurrage rate. Read your contract first; it is very likely doing more of the legal work here than the statute is.

Once you know whether you're pursuing (or defending) a cargo-loss claim, a freight dispute, or both, the next question is forum: the ordinary commercial courts in the relevant emirate by default, or arbitration if your contract carries a clause pointing there, typically through a general commercial arbitration centre rather than a dedicated maritime one. Either route can, in appropriate cases, run alongside an application to arrest the vessel as security — that is a separate, time-critical procedure covered in LEXNOVA's dedicated vessel-arrest guide, not repeated here.

Given the hedged figures above — a possibly short notice window and a possibly short time bar — the practical value of a maritime lawyer here is less about strategy and more about speed: confirming the actual deadlines against your actual delivery date, and getting formal notice out before any window closes. LEXNOVA can help you describe your shipment and the dispute so you can be matched with a lawyer experienced in UAE cargo and freight claims specifically; every match is reviewed by a person, and any advice you receive comes directly from the lawyer you choose, not from LEXNOVA.