Surrender

Surrender is the act of handing the original bill of lading back to the carrier. Under a negotiable bill, the carrier delivers the goods to the holder against surrender of an original. Article 47 of the Rotterdam Rules (adopted by the UN General Assembly on 11 December 2008) states this rule for paper documents and, for negotiable electronic transport records, requires the holder instead to demonstrate that it is the holder. On 17 October 2026 UNCITRAL's status page showed the Convention was not in force. The UNCITRAL Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records (MLETR, 2017) has no separate surrender provision. Its Explanatory Note (paragraph 121) explains that article 11(2), which treats transfer of control as the equivalent of transfer of possession, also covers surrender. In the United Kingdom, the Explanatory Notes to the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023 list presenting or surrendering a document as forms of use, and state that an electronic equivalent of surrender has the same effect as for paper. Surrender also occurs outside delivery. DCSA's interoperability guidance describes a holder surrendering an eBL to the carrier to request an amendment or a switch to a paper bill.