Commercial Trade Transactions
Instructor
Professor Jeffrey A. Weiss
Professor of Maritime Law, S.U.N.Y Maritime College, Graduate Division; maritime attorney and marine arbitrator

Commercial Trade Transactions is a course to assist the Maritime Profession in the understanding of the fundamentals of their business specifically the risks associated with international trade. This course will also present a diverse range of "real life" trade transaction problems for discussion and review.
Reading Materials

                No Supplemental Reading Material
Method
Course Commencement
Twelve Eight Weeks Duration offered each year in May - Upon registration students will be provided with his/her password for purposes of logging on to the ASBA Maritime Learning Online webpage. Learning will be asynchronous. Each student will select his/her time for attending the weekly virtual class (by reading each week's classroom lecture). Each student must also review any additional sites/materials provided by the professor. Students will be required to ask and answer questions for each lesson and check once answers have been posted to the site. Questions and their answers are viewable by all registrants. ASBA will award a certificate upon successful completion of all coursework and the Final Exam.
Topic Outline
  1. Fundamentals of Commercial Trade Transactions - risk of loss, INCOTERMS, seller and buyer responsibilities, and discussion of pro forma sales agreements, payment provisions, and special risks associated with international trade, among others.
  2. Letter of Credit Fundamentals- parties to the credit, advising versus confirming banks, irrevocable versus revocable credits, payment letters of credit, standby letters of credit, strict compliance rule, basic documentation required.
  3. Letters of Credit (Advanced) - application of the UCP to bills of lading, insurance certificates, inspection certificates, commercial invoices, and other documents, dealing with stale documents, dealing with discrepant documents, payment under reserve, back to back and transfer of credits, case studies.
  4. Transportation Fundamentals - bills of lading and charter parties, the role of transport intermediaries, freight forwarders, NVOCC's, multimodal issues, freight, among others.
  5. Risk Management - principles of cargo insurance, open policies, terms of average, covered risks, franchises and deductibles, general average overview, credit insurance, foreign corrupt practices, ethical considerations, among others.
  6. Commercial Transactions / Practical Problems - students will be presented with a diverse range of "real life" trade transaction problems for discussion. Students will use the course materials as a platform for discussing profitable and ethical solutions to the problems presented.