Transport Liability

Transport Liability is a tool for specialist lawyers, logistics companies and transport insurers. For cross-border transport damage, it determines the applicable liability regime (CMR, HGB, CIM), calculates liability limits at current exchange rates and monitors limitation and notification periods.

Which law actually applies to this one transport damage?

Cross-border carriage of goods is subject to different liability regimes depending on the stretch of the route and the mode of transport: CMR for road, HGB for national cases, CIM for rail, plus special multimodal cases. For specialist transport lawyers, determining the regime alone can cost 2 to 4 hours of research per case. Add a recourse chain of main carrier, sub-carrier and warehouse keeper, and it quickly becomes 5 to 10 hours. Then there is the calculation of liability limits in IMF Special Drawing Rights (8.33 SDR/kg under CMR, 26 SDR/kg under the Montreal Convention, since the ICAO adjustment of 28 December 2024), which have to be converted at current rates. A calculation error here quickly becomes a professional indemnity case.

Transport Liability bundles exactly this specialist subject in one tool: liability assessment with automatic regime determination, SDR calculation at current rates, deadline monitoring for the short limitation periods that often start at different points, and support in following up multi-stage recourse chains.

To give a sense of how differently the start of a period can be defined: under Art. 32 CMR, claims become time-barred after one year, or after three years in cases of wilful misconduct or equivalent fault. The one-year period starts at delivery for partial loss, damage and delay, but for total loss only on the 30th day after the agreed delivery period has expired (without an agreement, on the 60th day after the goods were taken over), and in other cases three months after the contract of carriage was concluded. For carriage under German freight law, § 439 HGB applies, with its own start of the period: one year, or three years in cases of wilful misconduct or equivalent fault, in each case from delivery or from the day on which the goods should have been delivered. Information as of 15 October 2026. The responsible lawyer checks the deadlines and limits in each individual case; the tool supports this but does not replace the legal review.

The target group is primarily specialist lawyers for transport law, and also logistics companies handling their own claims and transport insurers for cover checks and recourse decisions.

Core functions

• Automatic regime determination (CMR / HGB / CIM / multimodal) by stretch of the route
• SDR calculation at the current IMF rate, with liability limits per regime
• Deadline management for limitation and notification periods, including the correct start of the period
• Recourse chain analysis across several liability levels
• Document generation for damage notifications and deadline overviews

How to get started

Tell us whether you handle cases as a law firm, a freight forwarder or an insurer. We will discuss with you what fits your case and show you how the process looks. Write to us via the contact page and we will get back to you personally.

Price

Price on request. Write to us and we will give you a suitable quote.