Drayage operators awoke to a very different demurrage landscape this week after a federal appeals court struck down the Federal Maritime Commission’s prohibition on billing motor carriers for container late fees. The ruling unravels a core piece of the FMC’s 2024 billing framework and, in practical terms, gives ocean carriers new latitude to send detention and demurrage invoices directly to truckers when contracts allow—an abrupt turn from the status quo that shielded carriers from those charges.
The FreightWaves report at issue details how the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set aside the section of the FMC rule that dictated who could be billed, faulting the agency’s logic for barring invoices to motor carriers even where contractual privity exists. What remains intact are the rest of the rule’s mechanics—tight invoice timelines, mandatory data elements, and dispute windows—which still govern how any invoice must be built and challenged.
What this means on the street for trucking: if you’re on a carrier-haulage move (the ocean line hires the truck), you’re once again in the line of fire for D&D invoices unless your contract says otherwise. Legal advisories in the past 72 hours are counseling dray carriers and their customers to treat this as a contract-management problem first: scrub service agreements and UIIA addenda for who bears D&D risk, add explicit billing instructions, and tighten pass-through and indemnity language before peak season rhythms lock in.
At the same time, the court’s decision didn’t blow up the industry’s new invoice hygiene. Thirty-day issuance deadlines still apply, required data fields still must be present, and billed parties still get a 30-day clock to seek mitigation or refunds. Those teeth matter for truckers: defective or late invoices remain unenforceable, and the documentation ocean carriers must now provide gives motor carriers and their counsel a cleaner record to contest charges tied to terminal closures, appointment scarcity, or misdirected return locations. Recent legal guidance reiterates that point and urges updating tariffs, bills of lading terms, and rate quotations to the letter of the rule.
Operationally, expect three immediate ripple effects for drayage:
- More front-end credentialing of free time and ERD logic. Dispatchers will need invoice-ready proofs—availability notices, appointment logs, gate closures—captured contemporaneously to defend disputes under the still-binding content rules.
- Sharper contracting between BCOs, NVOs, and truckers. With liability gates reopened, parties will push for tighter handoffs on who controls empty returns and storage decisions—and who pays when those plans break.
- Fewer “triangulated” fights. The court realigns billing with privity, which should reduce scenarios where shippers are invoiced and then chase truckers for reimbursement (or vice versa). Instead, expect more direct carrier–trucker billing wherever the contract supports it, with cleaner dispute lanes under the FMC’s invoice standards.
Bottom line for motor carriers: the protection that many drayage firms had relied on since the FMC finalized its billing rule is no longer a sure thing. But the compliance scaffolding around invoice timing and content is still your shield—and it’s only useful if you capture the evidence that those rules contemplate. Review who bears D&D risk in every lane, make sure billing instructions match how freight actually moves through your network, and prepare your documentation playbook before the first disputed invoice lands.
Sources: FreightWaves, Husch Blackwell
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