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Лингвистический фон деловой корреспонденции (Linguistic Background of Business Correspondence) - (диплом)p>Writing an effective business letter is an important skill for every manager and business owner. In this brief overview we will examine the five main steps in creating an effective business letter. Main Steps:1. Identify your Aims: Clearly establish what you want to achieve from the letter- whether it is to win back a dissatisfied customer or to reprimand an employee. Whatever the aim, create your letter from these goals. 2. Establish the facts: Make sure you have the relevant accurate facts available. For a late payer, this might include relevant invoices, complaint forms, talks with your sales department and any previous correspondence from the customer. 3. Know the recipient of the letter: Write in the language of your recipient. Try to put yourself in the position of the recipient. Read it from his point of view. Is the letter clear or open to misinterpretation. If you know the recipient, use this knowledge to phrase the letter to generate your desired response. 4. Create a sample Copy: Having established your aims, amassed the relevant facts with a conscious view of the recipient- write down the main points of your letter. 5. Decide on Physical layout of letter. The physical appearance of a letter consists of the paper and the envelope. The first thing a recipient sees is the envelope. It is essential that it is of suitable quality with the name and address spelt correctly. Quality envelopes and paper suggest a professional company. It is wise to make sure the envelope matches the size of the paper. While you will use 81/2 x 11 inches(A4 size) sized paper for the majority of letters - a 4 x 6 inches(A5) can be used for specific shorter letters. But insist that properly sized envelopes are used for this A5 size paper, allowing you maintain and convey an coordinated image. Technical layout of letter: This will include your company's name, address, telephone number, fax number and email address. Include your web address if available. Other information may be required depending on the legal status of your business formation. Contact your legal adviser for exact details. 2. Name and address: Always include the recipient's name, address and postage code. Add job title if approriate. Double check that you have the correct spelling of the recipient 's name . 3. Date: Always date your letters. Never abbreviate January to Jan. 31. 4. Reference: These are optional. They are a good idea if you have a large volume of correspondence. These day modern word processors made this an easy task to complete and maintain. 5. Salutations: The type of salutation depends on your relationship with the recipient. Always try to personalise letter thus avoiding the dear sir/madam situation. 6. Subject matter: Again this is optional, but its inclusion can help the recipient in dealing successfully with the aims of your letter. Normally the subject sentence is preceded with the word Re: It should be placed one line below the greeting. 7. Communication: This will contain a number of paragraphs, each paragraph dealing with one point and one point only. 8. Signature: The signature should be clear and legible-showing you are interested in the letter and consequently the recipient. Your signature should also be followed underneath by a typed version of your name and your job title. 9. Enclosures: If you include other material in the letter, put 'Enclosure', 'Enc', or' Encs', as appropriate, two lines below the last entry. A letter's style: Previously we created the main points of our letter, now we must transform this into a final version. To do this, four main considerations are necessary. 1. Format: There are three main formats: blocked, semi-blocked and indented. The former has all entries tight against the left -hand margin. The semi-blocked format sets the references and the date to the right margin for filing and retrieval purposes, with the remaining entries placed against the left margin. The indented format follows the same layout as either of the above, but indents each paragraph by five or six spaces. 2. Prose: Clarity of communication is the primary goal. Don't use technical jargon if the recipient is unlikely to understand it. Short sentences are less likely to be misunderstood or misinterperted. Be precise , don't ramble. Check each sentence to see if it is relevant. Does it add to the point ? 3. Manner: Always try to personalise your letters. Always try to be civil and friendly even if the subject matter is stern and sensitive. Give the impression to the recipient that some effort and thought has gone into the letter. 4. Accuracy: Once the final version of the letter has been created, polish it off with a final spelling and punctuation check. Letter writing etiquette Always make sure you start and end your letters correctly. If you are writing to Mrs Jane Smith then you should start the letter 'Dear Mrs Smith' and finish it with 'Yours sincerely' - N. B. 'sincerely' does not start with a capital 'S'. Particular care is required when you are writing to a woman. If she has just written her name as Jane Smith do you start the letter 'Dear Jane' or 'Dear Ms Smith'. She might be offended if you refer to her as 'Ms' and you might not feel comfortable writing 'Dear Jane' as it sounds too familiar. To get round this problem all you have to do is ring the company and ask them how she likes to be addressed. If there is not a telephone number for the company in the advertisement just call Directory Enquires (dial 192 in the UK). When you ring the company all you have to say is that you are writing to Jane Smith and you would like to know whether she is a Ms, Mrs or Miss so your letter can be correctly addressed. If the advertisement just says reply to J. Smith how would you address the letter? Dear Sir? or Dear Madam? Dear Mr Smith? You would be well advised to ring the company and find out J. Smith's full name and title (Mr/Mrs/Ms/Miss). Remember politeness costs you nothing, but it can really pay dividends and you will probably be the only person who has bothered to find out. This may distinguish you from everyone else who applied - being noticed is the key to writing a potential interview-winning covering letter. If the advertisement just says write to the Personnel Department or reply to Box Number 55 it may not be possible for you to find out who will be handling your reply. In these cases you will have to start your letter 'Dear Sir/Madam' and finish the letter with 'Yours faithfully'. Please note that 'faithfully' does not start with a capital 'F'. Striking the Right Tone An underlying goal of most business letters you write is to promote goodwill between you and your reader. Especially when writing to someone for the first time, you should use a tone that will encourage that person to listen to you and want to work with you now and in the future If your letter is primarily informational or contains good news, a direct approach is usually best. State your point or offer your news immediately and briefly, and then explain any other information the reader needs to know. Finding the proper tone is more difficult if you are delivering bad news. In this case, taking an indirect approach may be a better strategy. In the first few sentences, for example, you could begin on a positive note by stating how much you want to work with the reader’s company or by reminding the reader of times you accommodated his or her requests in the past. When you do get to your point, try to minimize the reader’s disappointment or anger by delivering the message in carefully considered language that conveys your news clearly but tactfully. The fast pace of letters makes it easy to send a message without fully considering the nuances of its tone. If you do not take the time to think about your words and how they may be perceived, your letters may seem overly blunt or even insulting. A simple rule can keep you from writing inadvertently offensive letters: Always ask yourself how you would feel if you received the message you are sending. If you would bristle at its terseness, you can assume the reader will as well. If you are unsure how the message might be taken, ask for someone else’s opinion, or let it sit overnight and read it again the next morning with a fresh eye. If someone sends you a rude e-mail message (or “flame, ” in e-mail slang), take a moment to calm down before responding. The best way to douse a flame is to write back using the most neutral and measured tone you can muster. In some cases it’s best not to respond to a flame. Now I will deal with some common writing problems that do not involve rules of grammar. These problems—of parallelism, redundancy, and the like—are more rhetorical than grammatical; that is, they involve choices you must make as a writer trying to create a certain style of expression. You must determine what stylistic choices will afford greater clarity and cogency to each of your efforts to communicate. We all make different choices when faced with different communicative tasks depending on what we feel will be most effective. An expression that is appropriate for a formal letter may be utterly off-putting in an informal message. A successful and distinctive writing style is an elusive bird of paradise. It is unmistakable once you see it but difficult to find. It involves many things: creating an appropriate voice for your purpose, choosing the right words for the subject and audience, constructing elegant sentences whose rhythm reinforces their meaning, presenting an argument in a logical fashion that is both engaging and easy to follow, finding vivid images to make thoughts accessible to your readers. You can probably add to this list. You may, for example, want to shock or jolt your audience rather than court it, and this strategy requires stylistic features that are quite different from those you would use for gentle persuasion. Most memorable writing has as one of its recognizable features the ample use of parallel grammatical structures. A basic guideline about parallel constructions is to make sure that all the elements in a balanced pair or in a series have the same grammatical form. That is, if you start with a that-clause, stick with that-clauses; if you start with an infinitive, stick with infinitives; if you start with a participle, stick with participles; and so on. What you don’t want is a mixed bag, as in She had a strong desire to pursue medicine and for studying literature or The scientist asked for volunteers with allergies but who had not given blood recently. A second point is to make sure that once you have chosen the kind of grammatical forms you want to make parallel, you structure them symmetrically. Remember that an initial article, preposition, auxiliary verb, or modifier will tend to govern all elements in the series unless it is repeated for each element. For example, if you set up a series of nouns with the first modified by an adjective, the reader will expect the adjective to modify the rest of the series as well. Thus you should say The building has new lighting, plumbing, and carpeting but not The building has new lighting, plumbing, and different carpeting. The same is true for articles: He brought the rod, reel, and bait. If you want to restrict a modifier to only one noun, repeat the article for each noun: He brought the light rod, the reel, and the bait. When you spot a faulty parallel, recast the structure to give all the elements equivalent treatment. If your new parallel construction does not seem much of an improvement, rewrite the sentence completely to avoid the parallel construction. Better to have no parallel structures than to have parallel structures that sound overblown or stilted. Faulty parallelism is all around us. We see and hear it every day—often without taking notice. How many times have you heard Please leave your name, number, and a brief message? After waiting for the tone, have you ever objected to the imperfect symmetry of this sentence? In our most recent ballot we presented some sentences with questionable parallelism to the usage panelists to see how tolerant they would be. As we expected, they had a range of opinions. Crafting sentences with flawless parallelism takes effort and practice. Even if your readers don’t notice or object when you make mistakes, balance and symmetry are worth striving for in your writing. There are certain constructions that are notorious for throwing things out of whack. I listed some of them below. both … and … Writing handbooks usually include warnings about the passive voice—it is wordy and clumsy and leads to static rather than dynamic writing. There is truth to this, certainly, but the passive voice also has legitimate uses, and in many instances it is preferable to the active voice. Such phrases as "The material will be delivered"; "The start date is to be decided"; "The figures must be approved" are obscure ones leaving unsettled who it is that delivers, who decides, and who does the approving. Which side it is to be? Lawsuits are the plausible outcome of leaving it all unsettled. Passives used in contracts can destroy the whole negotiations. "You will deliver" is better for it identifies the one who will do delivering. Certainly, "must be approved by us" violates other canons. "We shall have the right but not the obligation to approve" is less unfortunate. There is no doubt that passives do not suit business letters, and if they go all the way through without adding something like "by you" or "by us" they are intolerable. Once in a long while one may find passives used purposely to leave something unresolved. A certain amount of redundancy is built in to the English language, and we would never consider getting rid of it. Take grammatical number, for instance. Sentences such as 'He drives to work' and 'We are happy' contain redundant verb forms. The -s of drives indicates singularity of the subject, but we already know the subject is singular from the singular pronoun he. Similarly, are indicates a plural subject, which is already evident from the plural pronoun we. Number is also indicated redundantly in phrases like this book and those boxes, where the demonstrative adjective shows number and the noun does as well. But there are redundant ways of saying things that can make the rest of your writing seem foolish. Many of these are common expressions that go unnoticed in casual conversation but that stick out like red flags in writing. Why say at this point in time instead of now, or because of the fact that when because will do? Something that is large in size is really just large. The trouble lies less in the expressions themselves than in their accumulated effect. Anyone can be forgiven for an occasional redundancy, but writing that is larded with redundancies is likely to draw unwanted laughs rather than admiration. Listed below are some of the more problematic redundancies. but … however In a world in which efficiency has become a prime value, most people view economy in wording as a sign of intelligence. Its opposite, therefore, is often considered a sign of stupidity. Most of us are busy and impatient people. We hate to wait. Using too many words is like asking people to stand in line until you get around to the point. It is irritating, which hardly helps when you are trying to win someone’s goodwill or show that you know what you’re talking about. What is worse, using too many words often makes it difficult to understand what is being said. It forces a reader to work hard to figure out what is going on, and in many cases the reader may simply decide it is not worth the effort. Another side effect of verbosity is the tendency to sound overblown, pompous, and evasive. What better way to turn off a reader? It is easy to recommend concision in expression but much harder to figure out how to achieve it. In general, wordy writing has three distinguishing characteristics: weak verbs, ponderous nouns, and lots of prepositional phrases. The three are interconnected. The key to writing clearly and concisely is to use strong active verbs. This means that you should only use the passive voice when you have a solid reason for doing so. If you look down a page you have written and see that you are relying on forms of the verb be and other weak verbs like seem and appear, you can often boil down what you have written to a fraction of its size by revising with active verbs. Here is an example: It is essential to acknowledge that one of the drawbacks to the increased utilization of part-time employees is that people who are still engaged full-time by the company are less likely to be committed to the recognition and identification of problems in the production area. This passage has 45 words. We can boil it down to 14 by cutting out the unnecessary words, using active verbs, and using noun modifiers to do the work of prepositional phrases: Using more part-time employees often makes full-time employees less willing to report production problems. A certain amount of repetition and redundancy has its uses. It never hurts to thank someone and add that you appreciate what was done. The recapitulation of the major points in a complicated essay can be a generous service to the reader, not a needless repetition. If you keep focused on what you are trying to accomplish and on what will help your readers or your listeners, you will have less need to remember formal rules of good writing. You will be able to trust your instincts and your ear. From the lexicological point of view isolated words and phrases mean very little. In context they mean a great deal, and in the special context of contractual undertakings they mean everything. Contract English is a prose organised according to plan. And it includes, without limitation, the right but not the obligation to select words from a wide variety of verbal implements and write clearly, accurately, and/or with style. Two phases of writing contracts exist: in the first, we react to proposed contracts drafted by somebody else, and in the second, which presents greater challenge, we compose our own. A good contract reads like a classic story. It narrates, in orderly sequence, that one part should do this and another should do that, and perhaps if certain events occur, the outcome will be changed. All of the rate cards charts, and other reference material ought to be ticked off one after another according to the sense of it. Tables and figures, code words and mystical references are almost insulting unless organised and defined. Without organisation they baffle, without definition they entrap. In strong stance one can send back the offending document and request a substitute document in comprehensible English. Otherwise a series of questions may be put by letter, and the replies often will have contractual force if the document is later contested. Contract phrases Now it appears logical to examine the examples of favourite contract phrases, which will help ease the way to fuller examination of entire negotiations and contracts. A full glossary is beyond reach but in what follows there is a listing of words and phrases that turn up in great many documents, with comments on each one. The words and phrases are presented in plausible contract sequence, not alphabetically. "Whereas" Everyone's idea of how a contract begins. Some lawyers dislike "Whereas" and use recitation clauses so marked to distinguish them from the text in the contract. There the real issue lies; one must be careful about mixing up recitals of history with what is actually being agreed on. For example, it would be folly to write: "Whereas A admits owing B $10, 000.... " because the admission may later haunt one, especially if drafts are never signed and the debt be disputed. Rather less damaging would be: e. g. "Whereas the parties have engaged in a series of transactions resulting in dispute over accounting between them.... " On the whole "Whereas" is acceptable, but what follows it needs particular care. "It is understood and agreed" On the one hand, it usually adds nothing, because every clause in the contract is "understood and agreed" or it would not be written into it. On the other hand, what it adds is an implication that other clauses are not backed up by this phrase: by including the one you exclude the other. “It is understood and agreed” ought to be banished. "Hereinafter" A decent enough little word doing the job of six ("Referred to later in this document"). "Hereinafter" frequently sets up abbreviated names for the contract parties. e. g. "Knightsbridge International Drapes and Fishmonger, Ltd (hereinafter "Knightsbridge"). "Including Without Limitation" It is useful and at times essential phrase. Earlier I've noted that mentioning certain things may exclude others by implication. Thus, e. g. "You may assign your exclusive British and Commonwealth rights" suggests that you may not assign other rights assuming you have any. Such pitfalls may be avoided by phrasing such as: e. g. "You may assign any and all your rights including without limitation your exclusive British and Commonwealth rights". But why specify any rights if all of them are included? Psychology is the main reason; people want specific things underscored in the contracts, and "Including Without Limitation" indulges this prediction. "Assignees and Licensees" These are important words which acceptability depends on one's point of view "Knightsbridge, its assignees and licensees.... " suggests that Knightsbridge may hand you over to somebody else after contracts are signed. If you yourself happen to be Knightsbridge, you will want that particular right and should use the phrase. "Without Prejudice" It is a classic. The British use this phrase all by itself, leaving the reader intrigued. "Without Prejudice" to what exactly? Americans spell it out more elaborately, but if you stick to American way, remember "Including Without Limitation", or you may accidentally exclude something by implication. Legal rights, for example, are not the same thing as remedies the law offers to enforce them. Thus the American might write: "Without prejudice to any of my existing or future rights or remedies.... " And this leads to another phrase. "And/or" It is an essential barbarism. In the preceding example I've used the disjunctive "rights or remedies". This is not always good enough, and one may run into trouble with "Knightsbridge or Tefal or either of them shall.... " What about both together? "Knightsbridge and Tefal", perhaps, followed by "or either". Occasionally the alternatives become overwhelming, thus and/or is convenient and generally accepted, although more detail is better. "Shall" If one says "Knightsbridge and/or Tefal shall have.... " or "will have.... ", legally it should make no difference in the case you are consent in using one or the other. "Shall", however, is stronger than "will". Going from one to another might suggest that one obligation is stronger somehow than another. Perhaps, one's position may determine the choice. "You shall", however is bad form. "Understanding" It is a dangerous word. If you mean agreement you ought to say so. If you view of affairs that there is no agreement, "understanding" as a noun suggests the opposite or comes close to it... it stands, in fact, as a monument to unsatisfactory compromise. The softness of the word conjures up pleasing images. "In accordance with our understanding.... " can be interpreted in a number of ways. "Effect" Here is a little word which uses are insufficiently praised. Such a phrase as "We will produce.... " is inaccurate, because the work will be subcontracted and the promise-maker technically defaults. Somebody else does the producing. Why not say "We will produce or cause to be produced.... "? This is in fact often said, but it jars the ear. Accordingly "We will effect production.... " highlights the point with greater skill. "Idea" This word is bad for your own side but helpful against others. Ideas as such are not generally protected by law. If you submit something to a company with any hope of reward you must find better phrasing than "my idea". Perhaps, "my format" or possibly "my property" is more appropriate. Naturally, if you can develop an idea into a format or protectable property, the more ambitious phrasing will be better justified. "As between us" It is useful, because people are always forgetting or neglecting to mention that a great many interests may be involved in what appears to be simple dialogue. "I reserve control over.... " and "You have the final power of decision over.... " sound like division of something into spheres, but frequently "I" am in turn controlled by my investors and "You" - by a foreign parent company, making the language of division inaccurate. Neither of us really controls anything, at least ultimately. Thus it will be useful to say, "As between us, I control.... " and so on. "Spanning" Time periods are awkward things: ".... for a period commencing August, 1 and expiring November, 15.... " is clumsy; ".... from August, 1 to November, 15.... " is skeletal when informing how long a contract obligation endures. But during particular time periods one may be reporting for work, for example, three days out of every five, or doing something else that is within but not completely parallel to the entire time period involved. A happy solution is the word "Spanning". It goes this way: "Throughout the period spanning August, 1 - November, 15 inclusive you will render services as a consultant three days out of every five. " It will be useful to put "inclusive" at the end for without it you may lose the date, concluding the period being spanned. "Negotiate in Good Faith" The negotiators have worked until late at night, all points but one have been worked out, the contract will never be signed without resolution of some particular impasse. What is there to do? Agree to "Negotiate in Good Faith" on the disputed point at later time. This is done frequently, but make no mistake about the outcome. The open point remains open. If it happens to be vital you may have no contract at all. "Negotiate in Good Faith" is one of those evasions that must be used sparingly. At the right time it prevents collapse, at the wrong time it promotes it. "Confirm" It suggests, of course, that something has been agreed upon before. You are writing now only to make a record of it. "I write to confirm that you admit substantial default in delivery" Frequently we encounter it in ordinary correspondence: "Confirming your order", "Confirming the main points of our agreement", and so on. "Furnish" It is a handy word which usefulness lies in the avoidance of worse alternatives. Suppose you transact to deliver a variety of elements as a package. "Deliver" leaves out, even though it may well be implied, the preliminary purchase or engagement of these elements, and at the other end it goes very far in suggesting responsibility for getting the package unscathed to where it belongs. Alternatives also may go wrong, slightly, each with its own implications. "Assign" involves legal title; "give" is lame and probably untrue; "transmit" means send. Thus each word misses some important - detail or implies unnecessary things. "Furnish" is sometimes useful when more popular words fall short or go too far. It has a good professional ring to it as well: "I agree to furnish all of the elements listed on Exhibit A annexed hereto and made part hereof by incorporation. " Who is responsible for non-delivery and related questions can be dealt with in separate clauses. "Furnish" avoids jumping the gun. It keeps away from what ought to be treated independently but fills up enough space to stand firm. The word is good value. "Right but Not Obligation" One of the most splendid phrases available. Sometimes the grant of particular rights carries with it by implication a duty to exploit them. Authors, for example, often feel betrayed by their publishes, who have various rights "but do nothing about them. " Royalties decrease as a result; and this situation, whether or not it reflects real criminality, is repeated in variety of industries and court cases. Accordingly it well suits the grantee of rights to make clear at the very beginning that he may abandon them. This possibility is more appropriately dealt with in separate clauses reciting the consequences. Still, contracts have been known to contain inconsistent provisions, and preliminary correspondence may not even reach the subject of rights. A quick phrase helps keep you out of trouble: "The Right but Not Obligation". Thus, "We shall have the Right but Not Obligation to grant sublicenses in Austria"("But if we fail, we fail"). Even this magic phrase has its limitations because good faith may require having a real go to exploiting the rights in question. Nevertheless "Right but Not Obligation" is useful, so much so as to become incantation and be said whenever circumstances allow it. I the other side challenges these words, it will be better to know this at once and work out alternatives or finish up the negotiations completely. "Exclusive" It’s importance in contract English is vast, and its omission creates difficulties in good many informal drafts. Exclusivity as a contract term means that somebody is -barred from dealing with others in a specified area. Typically an employment may be exclusive in that the employee may not work for any one else, or a license may be exclusive in the sense that no competing licenses will be issued. Antitrust problems cluster around exclusive arrangements but they are not all automatically outlawed. It follows that one ought to specify whether or not exclusivity is part of many transactions. If not, the phrase "nonexclusive" does well enough. On the other hand, if a consultant is to be engaged solely by one company, or a distributorship awarded to nobody else except X, then "exclusive" is a word that deserves recitation. "Exclusive Right but Not Obligation" is an example that combines two phrases discussed here. The linking of concepts is a step in building a vocabulary of contract English. "Solely on condition that" One of the few phrases that can be considered better than its short counterparts. Why not just "if"? Because "if" by itself leaves open the possibility of open contingencies: "If Baker delivers 1, 000 barrels I will buy them" is unclear if you will buy them only from Baker. Therefore what about "only if"? Sometimes this works out, but not always. "I will buy 1, 000 barrels only if Baker delivers them" is an example of "only if" going fuzzy. One possible meaning is "not more than 1, 000 barrels" with "only" assimilated with the wrong word. Here then a more elaborate phrase is justified. "I will buy 1, 000 barrels solely on condition that Baker delivers them" makes everything clear. "Subject to" Few contracts can do without this phrase. Many promises can be made good only if certain things occur. The right procedure is to spell out these plausible impediments to the degree that you can reasonably foresee them. E. g. : "We will deliver these subject to our receiving adequate supplies"; "Our agreement is subject to the laws of Connecticut"; "Repeat" This word is often used in cables to emphasize a negative, e. g. Do not REPEAT not send order 18551. Every now and then a scholarly phrase becomes accepted in business usage. "Pro rate" and "pari passu" are Latin expressions but concern money. "Pro rata" proves helpful when payments are to be in a proportion reflecting earlier formulas in a contract. "Pari passu" is used when several people are paid at the same level or time out of a common fund. Latin, however, is not the only source of foreign phrases in business letters. "Force majeure" is a French phrase meaning circumstances beyond one's control. English itself has plenty of rare words. One example is "eschew"; how many times we see people struggling with negatives such as "and we agree not to produce (whatever it is) for a period of X". The more appropriate phrase would be "we will eschew production". But here it should be mentioned that not everyone can understand such phrases. Therefore rare words should be used only once in a long while. Those who uses them sparingly appears to be reliable. Abbreviations can be useful because they are quick to write and easy to read. But both parties need to know what the abbreviations stand for. The abbreviations c. i. f. and f. o. b. , for example, are recognized internationally as meaning cost, insurance, and freight and free on board. But can you be sure that your correspondent would know that o. n. o means or nearest offer? Some international organizations, e. g. NATO, are know in all countries by the same set of initials, but many are not, e. g. EEC (European Economic Community) and UNO (United Nations Organization). National organizations, e. g. CBI (Confederation of British Industry) and TUC (Trades Union Congress), are even less likely to be known by their initials in other countries. So, if you are not absolutely certain that an abbreviation will be easily recognized, do not use it. The International Chamber of Commerce uses a set of terms for delivery in overseas contracts - these are called Incoterms. Now let me examine some of the abbreviations most frequently used in business correspondence. If consignment is to be delivered according to c. i. f. , then the supplier insures the goods and pays for the whole delivery. f. o. b. - free on board. If consignment is to be delivered according to f. o. b. , then the supplier pays for transportation to port, steamer or air shipment and dispatch; and the customer pays for onward transportation and insurance. It is the same as f. o. b. , but for railway transportation. If consignment is to be delivered according to c & f, then the supplier pays for the whole delivery and the customer - for insurance. Delivery happens when goods are given to the carrier (if more than one, the first carrier, or a freight forwarder). The seller pays the costs of delivery to the named place and the buyer's risks start from here. CIP (Carriage and Insurance Paid) named place of destination Delivery occurs, as in CPT with the buyer's risks being the same. The only change is the exporter pays the cost of cargo insurance. Delivery happens when the buyer gets the goods at a named place on the frontier, cleared for export, but not cleared for import. The buyer assumes risks from here. The exporter pays all the costs to this point, but does not pay for unloading or import clearing charges. Delivery happens when buyer gets goods at named port. He then assumes all risks, but the exporter pays all costs to that point, but not unloading or import clearance. DEQ (Delivery Ex Quay - Duty Paid) named port of destination Delivery happens when the buyer gets the goods on his/her quay (dock) and assumes all risks from that point. DES and DEQ can only be used for sea and inland waterways. Delivery takes place when the buyer gets the goods at the named place in the importing country and takes all the risks thereafter. The seller pays all costs to this point, but not duties and taxes. Delivery happens as in DDU, with the buyer taking the same risks. The seller pays all costs to this point including duties and taxes. Seller packs and prepares goods for dispatch with delivery taking place at his/her factory or warehouse. The buyer now takes all transit risks. FCA (Free Carrier) named place e. g. where the carrier - the plane or ship etc. , pick up goods Delivery occurs when the seller gives the goods to the carrier (airline, shipping company, or freight forwarder) who is named by the buyer. The seller will pay all the costs up to the point, including export formalities and licences. From this point the buyer takes the risks for the goods and transit. FAS (Free Alongside Ship) with port of shipment named e. g. where the goods are leaving from Delivery occurs alongside the ship named by the buyer at the named port of the shipment. The buyer has the expense of loading. The seller pays costs up to and including delivery alongside the ship, including all documentation. This term is only used for sea and inland waterways. |
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