What happened
On March 6, 2026, the Federal Maritime Commission served an Order Directing Hapag-Lloyd AG to Show Cause in Docket No. CC-002, an investigation under 46 U.S.C. § 41104(a) brought under the charge-complaint procedures of 46 U.S.C. § 41310. The complainant was Oceana Global Logistics, LLC, a party billed for detention and demurrage charges by Hapag-Lloyd.
The order recounts that Oceana had already disputed 167 of Hapag-Lloyd's original invoices in an earlier complaint; Hapag-Lloyd cancelled all 167 and, on April 18, 2025, reissued 159 of them under the same invoice numbers, billing the same charges. Oceana's second complaint, the subject of this order, disputed those 159 reissued invoices. The order states, of those 159 invoices: nine assessed detention charges and 150 assessed demurrage charges; the date each charge was last incurred ranges from June 6, 2024 to November 27, 2024; the original “Initial Invoice” dates ranged 2–13 days after the last charge, within the 30-day window; and every one of the 159 carries a “Reissued Invoice” date of April 18, 2025 — 142 to 316 days after the date the last charge was incurred (¶¶20–28).
The Commission's finding: “All 159 invoices identified in Attachment A were issued more than 30 days after the date on which the last charge was incurred” (¶29), so “Respondent's failure to issue the detention and demurrage invoices within 30 days after the date on which the last charge was incurred in violation of 46 C.F.R. §541.7(a) removes Complainant's obligation to pay the charges” (¶32). The order directs Hapag-Lloyd to show cause why the Commission should not order the waiver or cancellation of all 159 invoices, totaling $1,191,470.00 (¶35), and why a civil penalty should not follow under 46 U.S.C. §§41310(d), 41107 and 41109.
This is a show-cause order, not a final decision. Hapag-Lloyd filed its response on March 31, 2026 (public version on the docket), the Bureau of Enforcement replied on April 27, and on June 5, 2026 the Commission served a Notice of Extension of Time moving the final decision to October 8, 2026 (docket entry 10). The facts above are the Commission's own allegations as stated in the order; they are not restated here as a final adjudication of liability. This page will be updated when the decision issues.
Source: FMC Docket CC-002 docket listing,
www2.fmc.gov/readingroom/proceeding/CC-002/.
The order itself is saved locally in this repository's real-data corpus
(data/real/fmc_cc002_order_to_show_cause_20260306.pdf) and was originally
retrieved from www2.fmc.gov/readingroom/documents/135094.
The rule, verbatim
Two provisions of 46 CFR part 541 do the work. Both are quoted here exactly as encoded in
this project's demurragedesk/rules.py, retrieved verbatim from the GPO/govinfo
CFR XML and the eCFR versioner API, which agreed word for word.
46 CFR 541.7(a)
Unpayable
“A billing party must issue a demurrage or detention invoice within thirty (30) calendar days from the date on which the charge was last incurred. If the billing party does not issue a demurrage or detention invoice within thirty (30) calendar days from the date on which the charge was last incurred, then the billed party is not required to pay the charge.”
46 CFR 541.5
Unpayable
“Failure to include any of the required minimum information in this part in a demurrage or detention invoice eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay the applicable charge.”
46 CFR 541.6 lists the required minimum content behind 541.5 — 20 elements in five groups (19 apply to an import invoice, 18 to an export invoice):
- (a) Identifying (4): bill of lading number(s); container number(s); for imports, the port(s) of discharge; the basis for why the billed party is liable.
- (b) Timing (8): invoice date; invoice due date; allowed free time in days; start date of free time; end date of free time; for imports, container availability date; for exports, earliest return date; the specific date(s) charged.
- (c) Rate (3): total amount due; the applicable tariff/contract rule the rate is based on; the specific rate per that rule or contract.
- (d) Dispute (3): contact information for questions or a mitigation request; a digital means (URL, QR code, or watermark) to a page describing what is needed to request mitigation, refund, or waiver; the defined timeframes for that request and its resolution.
- (e) Certifications (2): that the charges are consistent with the Commission's demurrage and detention rules, including 46 CFR 545.5; and that the billing party's own performance did not cause or contribute to the charges.
46 CFR 541.4, which once limited who could be invoiced, is vacated — the eCFR text reads “[Reserved]” as of 2026-09-01. It is kept in this project's rule set only so its withdrawal is visible, and it never raises a defect. 46 CFR 502.303 is likewise not a live citation anywhere on this site.
What the checker reproduces — and what it does not
The public order does not attach the reissued invoice itself — the exhibits to
Attachment A are not in the public record. So this project built one test record,
data/real/cc002_reissued_invoice_001.txt, using only the facts
the order states verbatim: the date the charge was last incurred (November 27, 2024, the
latest date in the order's range) and the reissued invoice date (April 18, 2025). Running
this project's own timing check on that record independently computes
142 calendar days from charge to invoice, 112 days beyond
the 30-day limit in 541.7(a) — matching the low end of the Commission's own stated
142–316 day range for the 159 invoices, and matching the Commission's own violation
finding. This reproduction is pinned by an automated test in this repository
(tests/test_real_corpus.py) so it cannot silently drift.
This is one real data point, not a validated corpus. It is derived entirely from facts a public FMC order states about a real, adjudicated matter; it is not the original invoice, because the original invoice is not public. The 541.6 element-presence check (whether the 20 required fields are present) has zero real-invoice validation in this reproduction, because the public order never discloses whether the reissued invoices carried those fields — the checker correctly reports every one of them as “not found” on this record, which is honest about what the source document does and does not tell us, not a measurement of a real invoice's actual completeness. This tool has never been run against a live carrier invoice.
What this checker cannot do
- It cannot verify that the free time, daily rate, or tariff rule printed on an invoice match the actual service contract, terminal schedule, or filed tariff — that needs the contract, which the checker never sees.
- It checks that a required element is present, not that it is true. An element that is there but wrong will pass unless the person reviewing it flags it.
- It is not legal advice and creates no attorney-client relationship.
- It does not file, send, or submit anything on anyone's behalf, and it holds no data by default — the output is a document a person reviews and sends themselves.
If you have real invoices
If you hold ninety days of paid D&D invoices and want the measured miss rate, the checker runs entirely in your browser; nothing is uploaded. To have us run it and report the number: advatiya@trilatic.com.