In May 2014, the IMO's Maritime Safety Committee approved changes to the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) convention regarding a mandatory container weight verification requirement on shippers.

The DSC report was approved by the Maritime Safety Committee in May 2014 and adopted by the committee in November 2014.

The requirement making container weight verification a condition for vessel loading will becomelegally binding on 1stJuly, 2016.

The SOLAS amendments are clear in assigning responsibilities, summarized below:

For shippers to establish an accurate verified gross mass, two methods are available:

METHOD NO. 1
The shipper may weigh, or have arranged that a third party weigh, the packed container.

METHOD NO. 2
The shipper (or, by arrangement of the shipper, a third party) may weigh all packages and cargo items and add the tare mass of the container to the sum of the single masses of the container’s contents.