The revised Maritime Code of the People’s Republic of China, adopted on 28 October 2025, came into force on 1 May 2026. Its Article 295 contains a sentence that few European companies have read: any international contract for the carriage of goods by sea whose port of loading or port of discharge is in China is governed by Chapter IV of the Code, whatever law the parties have chosen. The bill of lading clause selecting English or French law therefore gives way before a Chinese court. Is this cause for alarm? Less than is being said, and not for the reasons usually given: the liability regime imposed is close to the one shippers believed they had chosen, and the gap lies elsewhere, in a limitation rule that turns a simple letter into an interrupting act, and in the question of who will bring which case before which court. Here is what an importer, an exporter and their insurer should take from it.
1. A conflict rule written for the Chinese judge.
The 1992 Code left the parties free: its Article 269 allowed them to choose the law of the contract “except where the law provides otherwise”, and there was hardly any contrary provision for international carriage. The first paragraph of the new Article 295 repeats that principle word for word. The second draws the exception the first had announced: an international contract for the carriage of goods by sea whose port of loading or port of discharge is located within the territory of the People’s Republic of China is subject to the provisions of Chapter IV (our translation).
The text draws no distinction. It covers imports and exports alike, the container of toys loaded at Ningbo for Le Havre as much as the pallet of cognac loaded at Le Havre for Shanghai. It works together with Article 45, which renders void any bill of lading stipulation contrary to Chapter IV. A foreign-law clause is not struck out as such; it simply stops having effect on everything Chapter IV governs, namely the carrier’s liability, the shipper’s liability, transport documents and delivery.
One still has to see to whom the rule is addressed: Article 295 sits in Chapter XV, devoted to the law applicable to foreign-related relationships, and it is a conflict rule of the Chinese forum. It binds the Chinese judge, and the Chinese judge alone.
2. Before a French commercial court, the clause keeps its full effect.
The French judge applies Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of 17 June 2008, known as Rome I. Article 3 gives effect to the parties’ choice. Article 9(3) allows effect to be given to the overriding mandatory provisions of a foreign State only where two conditions are met: it must be the State where the contractual obligations are to be performed, and those provisions must render performance of the contract unlawful.
The first condition could be argued, since loading or delivery takes place in China; the second cannot, because Article 295 renders nothing unlawful: it does not prohibit the carriage, it changes the rules that govern it. The Court of Justice has in any event closed the door to any broad reading: Article 9 precludes the forum court from applying, as legal rules, overriding mandatory provisions other than those of the forum or of the State of performance, and allows it to take them into account only as matters of fact, insofar as the law of the contract so provides (CJEU, Grand Chamber, 18 October 2016, Nikiforidis, Case C-135/15).
The consequence is easy to state: the same bill of lading, for the same damage, is no longer governed by the same law depending on whether the case is heard in Paris or in Shanghai. The applicable law can no longer be read in the contract. It depends on the race to court.
3. The regime imposed looks very much like the one you chose.
This is where the alarm of the first commentaries should be tempered. Chapter IV is not exotic law; it was written in 1992 on the model of the Hague-Visby Rules, which China never ratified but whose architecture it copied, and the 2025 revision brings it closer still.
The limits of liability in Article 57 are those of the amended Brussels Convention, namely 666.67 special drawing rights per package or 2 per kilogram of gross weight, whichever is higher, and they have not moved; the carrier keeps, for international carriage, the exemption for nautical fault and for fire in Article 52, which the revision removed only for Chinese coastal trade; Article 56 has even moved towards Hague-Visby, since lost cargo is now valued at the market price at the place and time of delivery rather than at its CIF value on departure, which is now merely a fallback, exactly as Article L. 5422-13 of the French Transport Code provides; as for Article 48, it expressly extends the duty of seaworthiness to containers supplied by the carrier, which the former text did not say.
Most liner bills of lading refer, through their Paramount clause, to the Hague or Hague-Visby Rules, so that for loss or damage the cargo interest who sues in Shanghai under Chapter IV will lose almost nothing compared with one who sues in Paris. It may even gain.
The danger is not in the substance. It is in the calendar.
4. In Shanghai, a letter interrupts the time bar.
Article 284 sets the time bar for an action against the carrier at one year from delivery, or from the day the goods should have been delivered. Nothing new there: it is the period in Article III(6) of the Brussels Convention and in Article L. 5422-18 of the French Transport Code. But Article 294 of the Chinese Code now lists the grounds of interruption, and the first of them is a request for performance made by the claimant. Former Article 267 knew only legal proceedings, arbitration and acknowledgement by the debtor. A letter of claim is now enough to start a fresh one-year period.
French law reasons the other way round, as we explained regarding the one-year time bar against the sea carrier. The one-year period of Article L. 5422-18 may be extended by an agreement concluded after the event, and it is interrupted by legal proceedings, a protective measure or the carrier’s acknowledgement (Articles 2240, 2241 and 2244 of the French Civil Code). A registered letter, however well argued, interrupts nothing, which is precisely why claims handlers negotiate written extensions.
Take a case. A cognac house in Jarnac sells twenty containers of cognac CIF to an importer in Shanghai and itself concludes the contract of carriage with a European carrier, under a bill of lading governed by English law. The containers are delivered at the Yangshan terminal on 9 June 2026; the consignee finds breakage and crushed packaging, and its lawyer sends a claim to the carrier’s agent on 22 June, then a second in June 2027 and a third in May 2028. Under English law as under French law, the action was extinguished on 9 June 2027, absent proceedings or an extension. Before the Shanghai Maritime Court, it is intact in 2028, each letter having started a new period. The carrier, which had closed the file, is sued, and it turns against the shipper for defective packaging under Article 68; Article 284(2) gives it for that recourse, where the main period has expired or has less than ninety days to run, ninety days from settlement of the main claim, the Chinese counterpart of the three months in Article L. 5422-18(2). Two years after delivery, the Jarnac house finds on its desk a file it thought dead, now to be argued under Chinese law.
Call it the Shanghai letter trap. It does not close on the party who writes, but on the party who receives and still reasons under the Brussels rules.
5. Who will choose the court, and what its judgment will be worth in France.
Everything therefore depends on the forum, and the forum is chosen by whoever has an interest in choosing it. The Chinese consignee of a French export has every means to seize its own court; so does the Chinese shipper of an import. The French cargo interest, for its part, may find it advantageous to sue in China when its claim is old and it has taken care to write, or when its opponent is a Chinese forwarder or NVOCC with no assets in Europe.
The Chinese judgment will not stay in China. The Franco-Chinese Agreement on Judicial Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters signed in Beijing on 4 May 1987, in force since 8 February 1988, provides for the recognition and enforcement of judgments of each State’s courts in the territory of the other, under the conditions it lays down. A judgment of the Shanghai Maritime Court applying Article 295 is therefore not a local curiosity: it is a title that may be presented to a French judge, following the procedure we described for enforcing a foreign judgment in France.
The best protection against the Chinese forum remains the jurisdiction or arbitration clause in the bill of lading. It must still be enforceable against the holder who sues, a question Chinese law assesses by its own criteria and which varies with the nature of the document and the standing of the party relying on it. We will not settle it here. To our knowledge there is as yet neither a judicial interpretation of Article 295 by the Supreme People’s Court nor a published decision applying it to a bill of lading governed by foreign law; we are reasoning prospectively, on the wording of a text in force for five months.
6. What to revisit now.
The first reflex concerns the international sale, not the carriage, because whoever concludes the contract of carriage is the one Chapter IV catches as shipper: the seller under CIF or CFR, the buyer under FOB, a split we set out when discussing who can sue the carrier. A French exporter selling CIF to China has chosen, without knowing it, to be party to a contract that the Chinese judge will govern by its own law. It may prefer to sell FOB, or to give packaging and the declaration of dangerous goods (Article 70) a documentary attention it did not give them before: these are the two grounds on which the carrier will exercise its recourse.
The second concerns claims handling. The French cargo interest shipping to or from China now has a weapon it did not have, and it would be a pity not to use it: a letter of claim sent to the carrier, dated and provable, preserves an action before the Chinese judge that French law would let lapse. Conversely, the carrier or shipper receiving such a letter can no longer treat it as a formality. The closing calendar for Chinese files must be kept separate from all the others.
The third concerns insurance. The cargo insurer subrogated to the importer’s rights inherits its letters and its deadlines; the recourse it pursues will depend on how the loss was handled in the weeks following delivery, not on the wording of the policy. A claims-handling clause aligned with Article 294 costs little.
The last concerns the reading of the bill of lading itself. Its governing-law clause now protects only before a judge willing to apply it; its jurisdiction clause, by contrast, has become the most important on the whole reverse side. It used to be read last.
What remains open.
Two questions will only be settled in litigation. The first is transhipment: is a container leaving Ho Chi Minh City for Rotterdam, transhipped at Shanghai, carried under a contract whose port of loading is in China? The wording targets the contractual ports of loading and discharge, not the call; Chinese practice will tell whether it stops there. The second is arbitration: will an arbitral tribunal seated in China apply Article 295 against the parties’ will, and will a tribunal seated in London take it into account when its award has to be enforced in China?
For the rest, the rule comes down to this: the Chinese law imposed is no harsher than the one the parties thought they had chosen; it is more patient. Whoever trades with China should no longer ask which law it chose, but before which court it may end up, and by what date.
For the firm’s work in this area, see International maritime lawyer, Maritime litigation, International trade law and Incoterms and international sales.
This analysis is part of the firm’s work in maritime law.
Frequently asked questions
Does Article 295 of the Chinese Maritime Code apply to imports into France?
Yes, as soon as the port of loading or the port of discharge is in China: a container loaded at Ningbo for Le Havre falls within its scope, just like a container loaded at Le Havre for Shanghai. The rule binds only the Chinese judge, however. Before a French court, the law chosen in the bill of lading continues to apply, since Article 9(3) of the Rome I Regulation does not allow effect to be given to a foreign overriding mandatory provision that does not render performance of the contract unlawful.
Is the Chinese regime less favourable to shippers than the Hague-Visby Rules?
For loss and damage, no. The limits in Article 57 are the same (666.67 special drawing rights per package or 2 per kilogram), the nautical fault exemption is kept for international carriage, and Article 56 now values goods at the market price at the place of delivery, as Article L. 5422-13 of the French Transport Code does. The difference lies in the time bar, which Chinese law allows to be interrupted far more easily.
Does a letter of claim interrupt the time bar against the carrier?
Before a Chinese court, yes: Article 294 of the Chinese Maritime Code makes a request for performance a ground of interruption, starting a fresh one-year period. Under French law, no: the period in Article L. 5422-18 of the French Transport Code can only be extended by an agreement concluded after the event, and is interrupted only by legal proceedings, a protective measure or the carrier’s acknowledgement (Articles 2240, 2241 and 2244 of the French Civil Code).
Can a Chinese judgment given on this basis be enforced in France?
The Franco-Chinese Agreement on Judicial Assistance in Civil and Commercial Matters of 4 May 1987, in force since 8 February 1988, provides for the recognition and enforcement of judgments of each State’s courts in the territory of the other, under the conditions it lays down. A judgment of the Shanghai Maritime Court applying Article 295 may therefore be presented to a French judge.
How can a business protect itself when selling to or buying from China?
First by identifying who concludes the contract of carriage under the chosen Incoterm (the seller under CIF or CFR, the buyer under FOB), since that party is treated as shipper by Chapter IV. It should then document packaging and the declaration of dangerous goods, keep a separate calendar for China-related claims, and read the jurisdiction or arbitration clause of the bill of lading, which now matters more than the governing-law clause.