You receive a phone call from a director in another division of CTI. They were working on a project that involved a special international shipment of wine for one of CTIs big customers. He tells you to sit down, since this is a long, involved story.
On January 2nd, a procurement representative from CTI, located in the San Francisco, California office, ordered a shipment of wine from Primo Italia, an Italian wine producer. The order was placed using the order form on the Primos website. Payment was scheduled through a letter of credit that was sent to CTIs bank, JL Bank, via email. Typically, in these types of transactions, the buyers bank holds onto the documents until payment is received from the buyer. Upon payment of the amount due, the bank forwards the documents to the buyer, who will then be able to collect the goods.
The letter of credit stated that payment was due on arrival of the goods in San Francisco harbor. The Bill of Lading, also emailed to JL Bank along with the invoices, stated that notification would be given to the seller when the goods arrived in the port. The bank was not listed on the Bill of Lading or the invoices. Since the bank was not listed, the clerk who received the email with the Bill of Lading and invoices archived it without telling with anyone. JL Bank took no further action on the matter, until it received notice from the seller of the delinquent payment.
The wine arrived in the harbor as scheduled on February 27. Notice of the delivery was sent via email to Primo Italia. Primos salesperson read the email, but took no further action, assuming the wine would be picked up by the buyer. JL Bank did not receive notice of the delivery, and so the wine sat in the harbor in metal containers until it deteriorated completely. Primo never received payment for the wine.
Primo has sued CTI for non-payment for the wine and additional damages for the loss of the wine. The customer who ordered the wine has sued CTI for the loss of the wine.
You send an email to the Legal Department to notify them of the lawsuit since this is a contract dispute. Meanwhile, you receive an urgent call from the director who originally talked to you about this issue. The director tells you that his office received notice that the shipment had arrived, but the email was overlooked in a very busy week. He asks you not to take any action on the issue as his unit will undoubtedly be on the hook for the mistake and loss of the wine, and he could lose his job or worse.
What do you do?
Questions
1) What is the problem that resulted from the circumstances, and why might there be different interpretations of the facts? Outline the points that you want to make in the first two sections of your paper (introduction and explanation), and draft those sections.
