Maritime Law · 15.09.2026

Cargo Claim in Vietnam: Time Limits, Liability and Who to Sue

A cargo claim in Vietnam turns on two questions: which limitation period runs, and who you sue. A decided case where three time-bar arguments failed.

Lawyer UnilawReading time: 8 min

By Lawyer Nguyen Nhu Hai – UniLaw LLC

A cargo claim in Vietnam usually fails on one of two points, and neither of them is the damage itself. The first is timing, because the clock can be one year, two years or three depending on how you frame the claim. The second is the defendant, because suing the wrong company hands the other side a jurisdiction clause and a clean exit. This page walks through both, with a decided case that turned on exactly these questions.

A cargo claim in Vietnam that survived three time-bar arguments

Judgment No. 61/2023/KDTM-PT of 22 June 2023 — Superior People’s Court in Ho Chi Minh City, upholding Judgment No. 996/2022/KDTM-ST of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Court.

A Vietnamese importer brought in a container of frozen fish from Indonesia. The box landed at Cat Lai on 13 August 2017 and the terminal discharged it in good order the next day. Quarantine officers then drew samples, so the container sat waiting for three days for the result.

During that wait the shipping line’s Vietnamese agent opened container MWMU5729095 and moved the fish into a new box, PONU2889720. However, it left 20 bags behind in the old container — and the old container then lost power. A Vinacontrol survey on 25 August 2017 found the whole consignment thawed, leaking and unfit for sale.

The three defences, and why each failed

The agent ran three defences. First, it said it was only a logistics provider, so Articles 233 and 237(1)(đ) of the Commercial Law 2005 excused it because no formal notice arrived within 14 days. Second, it argued that the claim had run out of time: under Article 169 of the Maritime Code 2015 the one-year period expired on 14 August 2018, and even under Article 319 of the Commercial Law the two-year period expired on 21 August 2019. Third, it pointed to clause 26 on the back of Bill of Lading MCT782520, which put English law and the High Court in London in charge and excluded every other country’s courts.

All three failed. The courts treated the claim as one for non-contractual damage under Article 584 of the Civil Code, not as a claim on the bill of lading. On that footing the bill’s jurisdiction clause did not bite, and Vietnamese courts had general jurisdiction under Articles 464 and 469 of the Civil Procedure Code because the defendant was established in Vietnam and the loss happened at Cat Lai. The court ordered the agent to pay VND 3,117,445,158 — VND 2,992,736,000 for the cargo plus VND 124,709,158 in port costs. The court refused a further VND 1,404,508,183 for a consultant’s fee and bank interest.

The lesson is blunt. How you plead the claim decides which clock runs and which court hears it.

Three clocks on a cargo claim in Vietnam

Vietnamese law offers more than one limitation period, and they are far apart.

One year — Article 169 of the Maritime Code 2015, for loss of or damage to goods, running from the day the goods were delivered or should have been delivered to the consignee.
Two years — Article 319 of the Commercial Law 2005, for commercial disputes generally.
Three years — the Civil Code period for non-contractual damage, which is what applied in Judgment No. 61/2023.

Therefore the first question in any cargo claim in Vietnam is not what went wrong, but who owed what duty to whom. A claim on the contract of carriage against the carrier runs on the maritime clock. A claim against a local agent for what it physically did to your box may run on the tort clock instead.

That said, do not plan around the longest period. Judgment No. 61/2023 took nearly six years from casualty to appeal judgment. Preserve the shortest arguable deadline and work from there.

Who to sue in a cargo claim in Vietnam

Three candidates come up, and they are not interchangeable.

The contracting carrier appears on the bill of lading. It is the natural defendant, but it is often a foreign company, and its bill will normally carry a foreign law and jurisdiction clause.

The local agent handles the box at the discharge port. If the damage happened there, and the agent did something to the cargo, a claim in tort against the agent keeps the dispute in Vietnam. That is the route that worked in Judgment No. 61/2023.

The freight forwarder or logistics provider may be liable too. However, Articles 233 and 237 of the Commercial Law give logistics providers real defences, including short notice periods, so check those dates before relying on this route.

The jurisdiction clause on the back of the bill

Almost every liner bill sends disputes to a foreign court or to arbitration. Judgment No. 61/2023 shows that such a clause is strong, but not universal.

The clause binds claims on the bill. It does not automatically capture a claim that is not brought on the bill at all. So where the defendant is established in Vietnam and the damage occurred in a Vietnamese port, Articles 464 and 469 of the Civil Procedure Code can still give Vietnamese courts jurisdiction.

This matters commercially. Litigating in London is slow and expensive for a claim worth a few billion dong, and a Vietnamese judgment is directly enforceable against a Vietnamese defendant.

How much the carrier actually has to pay

Where the claim does run against the carrier, Article 152 of the Maritime Code 2015 caps it. If the shipper did not declare the nature and value of the goods before loading, and the bill of lading does not state them, the carrier pays no more than 666.67 units of account per package or unit, or 2 units of account per kilogram of gross weight, whichever is higher. The unit of account is the IMF Special Drawing Right, converted into dong at the payment date.

Containers have their own rule. Each package or unit that the transport document lists as stuffed into the container counts as one package. But if the document does not state the number of packages, the whole container counts as a single unit. In other words, a vague bill of lading can reduce a claim by an order of magnitude.

So declare value where the cargo justifies it, and make sure the piece count appears on the bill.

What the carrier can blame instead

Article 150 requires the carrier to exercise due diligence before and at the beginning of the voyage: a seaworthy ship, a proper crew, and holds and reefer spaces fit to carry and preserve the goods.

Article 151 then lists what excuses the carrier completely. The list is long and includes error in the navigation or management of the ship, fire that the carrier did not cause, perils of the sea, natural disaster, war, seizure or court process, quarantine restrictions, the shipper’s own act or omission, and strikes.

Note the shape of it. The carrier must prove due diligence on seaworthiness, but the exceptions do a great deal of work once the carrier does that. Therefore evidence about the cargo’s condition at each handover is usually worth more than argument about fault.

When carrier responsibility starts and stops

Article 170 fixes the period. Responsibility begins when the carrier takes the goods at the loading port, continues through the voyage, and ends when delivery at the discharge port is complete.

That endpoint is the pressure point in most disputes. In Judgment No. 61/2023 the line argued it was finished the moment the container touched the quay at Cat Lai. The courts disagreed, because its agent then went on to handle the box. Consequently the practical question is not when the ship sailed away, but who last had their hands on the cargo.

A cargo claim in Vietnam: what to do in the first week

A cargo claim in Vietnam succeeds on paper you gather early, while the goods still exist.

Survey the cargo before anyone moves it, and instruct an independent surveyor.
Notify the carrier and the agent in writing at once, and keep the proof of sending.
Photograph seals, container numbers and reefer set points before the box is opened.
Secure the temperature log for reefer cargo, because the line deletes or overwrites it quickly.
Keep the goods, or a representative sample, until liability is resolved.

In Judgment No. 61/2023 the cargo was gone by the time of trial, so nobody could inspect it directly. The claim still succeeded, but only because the importer had obtained the quarantine certificates and the Vinacontrol survey at the right moments.

Legal basis

Maritime Code 2015 (Law No. 95/2015/QH13), consolidated as Document No. 52/VBHN-VPQH of 18 March 2026 — Articles 145–146 (contracts of carriage by sea); Article 150 (carrier’s duty of due diligence); Article 151 (exemptions); Article 152 (limitation of liability, 666.67 and 2 units of account, container rule); Article 169 (one-year time bar for loss of or damage to goods); Article 170 (start and end of carrier responsibility).
Commercial Law 2005 — Article 233 (logistics services); Article 237 (exemptions for logistics providers); Article 319 (two-year limitation for commercial disputes).
Civil Code 2015 — Articles 584, 588 and 589 (non-contractual liability and compensation).
Civil Procedure Code 2015 — Articles 464 and 469 (jurisdiction over disputes with a foreign element); Article 472 (cases the court declines).

How we run a cargo claim in Vietnam

Unilaw acts for cargo interests, underwriters and recovery agents on damage, shortage and misdelivery claims at Vietnamese ports. Because the framing decides the deadline and the forum, we settle that question first, then build the evidence around it. We also act on the other side, for carriers and their agents.

For the wider practice see our Vietnam maritime lawyer page. If a vessel needs to be held as security, see ship arrest in Vietnam. If the carrier released the goods without the originals, see delivery without bill of lading. On the cover behind the claim, see marine insurance in Vietnam. If your claim ended in a London or Singapore award, see foreign arbitral award in Vietnam. If the port authority is holding the ship rather than a court, see vessel detention in Vietnam. On crew wages and repatriation, see seafarer wages in Vietnam. For flagging, mortgages and priority, see ship registration in Vietnam. Further judgments sit in our maritime law library.