When draft survey prevails: Brazilian shortage claims after the ‘SEA HONEST’ judgment in Marine Insurance P&I Club News 18/03/2026 A long-awaited judgment has introduced an important development in Brazilian cargo litigation. In the SEA HONEST case, a court in southern Brazil expressly held that, in the absence of an official discharge certificate, draft survey figures prevail over private apportionment documents and post-discharge calculations. The ruling may influence how shortage claims are assessed in bulk trades to Brazil. Bulk commodities remain central to South American trade flows. Fertilisers are essential to Brazil’s agribusiness sector and are imported in substantial volumes through Brazilian ports. With this scale of trade comes recurrent litigation. Importers and, more frequently, cargo underwriters pursue claims against carriers for alleged shortages identified after discharge. These claims are grounded in Brazil’s doctrine of strict carrier liability, historically rooted in the 1850 Commercial Code and consolidated in Article 743 and subsequent provisions of the Brazilian Civil Code. Under this regime, a claimant need only establish that the cargo was shipped in a given quantity and apparent good order under a clean Bill of Lading and that a discrepancy was identified upon discharge based on shore-scale figures. Fault is not required. Once a shortage is evidenced, the burden shifts to the carrier to demonstrate an exempting cause or to challenge the discharge figures. Brazil is not a party to the international conventions relating to the carriage of goods by sea. Cargo disputes are governed by domestic legislation and by case law that has traditionally attributed decisive weight to shore-based discharge figures. The evolution of defences in Brazilian shortage claims Over the past decades, defence strategies have evolved within this strict framework. Early arguments focused on natural loss percentages and commercial allowances, particularly in fertiliser trades. Case law from the 1980s onwards recognised acceptable loss margins, although their application and percentages — typically ranging from 0.6% to 1.0%, and sometimes higher — vary depending on the discharge port and the nature of the cargo. Procedural defences later gained prominence. These include, inter alia, arguments based on the one-year time bar applicable to cargo receivers and their underwriters (as established by Supreme Court Precedent No. 151), the application of bar by laches under Article 754 of the Civil Code where no protest is issued within ten days of discharge, and challenges to Brazilian jurisdiction where charterparties contain foreign jurisdiction or arbitration clauses incorporated into Bills of Lading. Although Brazilian courts have traditionally asserted jurisdiction in cargo matters when the receivers are based in Brazil and the discharge occurs at a Brazilian port, recent decisions show increasing willingness to uphold arbitration and foreign jurisdiction clauses, albeit with continuing debate before the Superior Courts. Despite these developments, one significant obstacle persists for carriers: the evidentiary weight attributed to shore-scale figures. Strict liability and the weight of shore figures Brazilian courts have consistently treated shore-scale figures, particularly those issued by port authorities or terminals certified by Federal Customs, as the standard for determining shortage. In practice, however, claimants do not always rely