The daily rush of buying, selling, and servicing customers—not to mention running your business—probably leaves little time for brushing up on the industry trading rules you’ve learned over the years.
Fortunately, PACA, DRC, WGA, and Blue Book all have dedicated staff just a phone call away when a deal starts to go sideways. Still, a proactive review of the fundamentals from time to time can be helpful.
In these three posts, we review a sampling of 15 trading rules or principles in a true/false format. Here’s Part 2 on acceptance and rejection.
Of course, feel free to reach out to us if you’d like to discuss any of these points further. Good luck!
Acceptance & Rejection
8. By accepting a shipment of produce, the buyer assumes liability for the agreed-upon invoice price, less any damages it can show resulted from a breach of contract by the seller.
True. Acceptance has a technical meaning in this context. A buyer may accept a shipment while at the same time alleging a breach of the sales agreement. After accepting, the buyer will need to show a breach of the sale agreement and resulting damages to support a deduction from the invoice.
9. A buyer may accept a shipment unintentionally by unloading, diversion, or failing to reject the shipment in a timely manner.
True. If the buyer intends to reject, the product should remain on truck and written notice of rejection should be given to the seller in clear and unmistakable terms in a timely manner, usually within 8 hours.
10. After receiving a trouble notice from a buyer, sellers are entitled to the return of the product, provided their demand is timely.
False. The decision whether to accept or reject product is the buyer’s alone to make. Sellers have no right to insist upon the return of product.
11. When product purchased on an f.o.b. basis is properly rejected to the seller, the carrier (or truck broker) must recover its freight from the breaching seller.
False. The carrier is entitled to be paid by the party it extended credit to. The buyer’s losses resulting from the seller’s breach may be claimed as damages against the seller.
