The Inspection Agency Certified Both the Seller and the Buyer. Nobody Noticed.
Quote from chief_editor on June 7, 2026, 5:30 pmWhen the same inspection company certifies cargo for the seller and provides discharge survey services for the buyer, the conflict affects both functions. It is rarely disclosed.
An inspection company with a global network and a strong reputation for independence issued a pre-shipment certificate for a cargo of ferro-manganese in South Africa. The certificate was issued on behalf of the seller. Three weeks later, the same company's branch in the Netherlands conducted the discharge survey of the same cargo on behalf of the buyer.
The buyer, upon receiving the discharge survey showing specification compliance, did not notice the obvious: their "independent" discharge surveyor was the same company that had certified the cargo for the seller at loading. Whether the company's internal information barriers between the South Africa branch and the Netherlands branch were adequate to prevent the load port findings from influencing the discharge assessment — or whether the branch handling the buyer's discharge survey had access to the seller's pre-shipment report — was never formally investigated.
This arrangement is not unusual. Major international inspection companies — SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, Cotecna — operate globally across all functions of commodity trade: load port inspection, discharge survey, laboratory analysis, collateral management verification, and more. Their global presence is commercially useful. It also creates structural situations where the same company is simultaneously in commercial relationships with both parties to a transaction.
Commercial Neutrality Requires More Than Corporate Independence
The inspection companies involved in commodity trade are reputable organizations with professional standards and, in most cases, genuine efforts to maintain internal barriers between client engagements. They are not generally conducting deliberate fraud by using information from one client's engagement to benefit another.
The structural problem is subtler: when the same company has commercial relationships on both sides of a transaction, the independence that each party assumes — the seller assumes the load port inspector is confirming quality for export, the buyer assumes the discharge surveyor is assessing the cargo's condition on arrival — is qualified by the commercial context. The inspection company has an interest in maintaining both commercial relationships. Commercial interests influence institutional behavior, sometimes in ways that are not visible from outside.
A discharge surveyor from the same company that certified the cargo at load port has an implicit incentive not to find significant deficiencies at discharge. Significant discharge deficiencies would mean the pre-shipment certificate was wrong — either the cargo deteriorated significantly in transit, or the pre-shipment certificate understated the deficiency. The first conclusion creates a carrier liability question. The second creates a pre-shipment inspection credibility question. Either outcome is uncomfortable for the company that issued both reports.
Industry estimates for the proportion of commodity trade transactions where the same inspection company handles both load and discharge functions suggest that the overlap is common enough to be a standard commercial reality rather than an unusual occurrence. The major inspection companies compete vigorously for both functions, and many sellers and buyers appoint their preferred company without specifying that it must be different from the counterparty's appointed inspector.
The Practical Alternative
Buyers who want genuinely independent discharge assessment should appoint a different inspection company from whoever the seller used for the load port inspection — and should specify this in the contract. This is not always easy: on some trade routes, the pool of capable inspection companies with local presence and accreditation is small, making true separation difficult.
Where genuine separation is achievable, it provides a meaningful improvement in the independence of the discharge assessment. Where it is not achievable — where the same company must handle both functions — buyers should require explicit disclosure of the dual role and should review any discharge findings that deviate from the load port certificate with heightened scrutiny, recognizing that the institutional bias works in both directions: toward confirming load port findings as well as toward identifying genuine in-transit deterioration.
When the same inspection company certifies cargo for the seller and provides discharge survey services for the buyer, the conflict affects both functions. It is rarely disclosed.
An inspection company with a global network and a strong reputation for independence issued a pre-shipment certificate for a cargo of ferro-manganese in South Africa. The certificate was issued on behalf of the seller. Three weeks later, the same company's branch in the Netherlands conducted the discharge survey of the same cargo on behalf of the buyer.
The buyer, upon receiving the discharge survey showing specification compliance, did not notice the obvious: their "independent" discharge surveyor was the same company that had certified the cargo for the seller at loading. Whether the company's internal information barriers between the South Africa branch and the Netherlands branch were adequate to prevent the load port findings from influencing the discharge assessment — or whether the branch handling the buyer's discharge survey had access to the seller's pre-shipment report — was never formally investigated.
This arrangement is not unusual. Major international inspection companies — SGS, Bureau Veritas, Intertek, Cotecna — operate globally across all functions of commodity trade: load port inspection, discharge survey, laboratory analysis, collateral management verification, and more. Their global presence is commercially useful. It also creates structural situations where the same company is simultaneously in commercial relationships with both parties to a transaction.
Commercial Neutrality Requires More Than Corporate Independence
The inspection companies involved in commodity trade are reputable organizations with professional standards and, in most cases, genuine efforts to maintain internal barriers between client engagements. They are not generally conducting deliberate fraud by using information from one client's engagement to benefit another.
The structural problem is subtler: when the same company has commercial relationships on both sides of a transaction, the independence that each party assumes — the seller assumes the load port inspector is confirming quality for export, the buyer assumes the discharge surveyor is assessing the cargo's condition on arrival — is qualified by the commercial context. The inspection company has an interest in maintaining both commercial relationships. Commercial interests influence institutional behavior, sometimes in ways that are not visible from outside.
A discharge surveyor from the same company that certified the cargo at load port has an implicit incentive not to find significant deficiencies at discharge. Significant discharge deficiencies would mean the pre-shipment certificate was wrong — either the cargo deteriorated significantly in transit, or the pre-shipment certificate understated the deficiency. The first conclusion creates a carrier liability question. The second creates a pre-shipment inspection credibility question. Either outcome is uncomfortable for the company that issued both reports.
Industry estimates for the proportion of commodity trade transactions where the same inspection company handles both load and discharge functions suggest that the overlap is common enough to be a standard commercial reality rather than an unusual occurrence. The major inspection companies compete vigorously for both functions, and many sellers and buyers appoint their preferred company without specifying that it must be different from the counterparty's appointed inspector.
The Practical Alternative
Buyers who want genuinely independent discharge assessment should appoint a different inspection company from whoever the seller used for the load port inspection — and should specify this in the contract. This is not always easy: on some trade routes, the pool of capable inspection companies with local presence and accreditation is small, making true separation difficult.
Where genuine separation is achievable, it provides a meaningful improvement in the independence of the discharge assessment. Where it is not achievable — where the same company must handle both functions — buyers should require explicit disclosure of the dual role and should review any discharge findings that deviate from the load port certificate with heightened scrutiny, recognizing that the institutional bias works in both directions: toward confirming load port findings as well as toward identifying genuine in-transit deterioration.