A detention and demurrage dispute is a formal challenge to D&D charges billed in error: free time miscounted, a clock started on the wrong event, or charges accrued on days the terminal itself made pickup impossible.
Disputes are worth building because errors are common. Industry research consistently finds that 30–40% of detention and demurrage invoices contain errors, and a mid-size forwarder can carry substantial annual D&D exposure across its lanes. The evidence is almost entirely timestamps: vessel discharge date, gate-in and gate-out records, appointment availability, and the free-time terms in the governing contract or tariff. A dispute is won by lining those up against the invoice, not by arguing.
The approach to reject is pay-and-move-on: treating D&D invoices as a cost of doing business because disputing feels like more work than the line item is worth. That is cost-per-ticket logic applied to margin. At the error rates industry research reports, paying unaudited invoices is a standing donation to the carrier, and it compounds every week the queue stays too busy to check.
Pay-and-move-on vs evidence-built dispute at a glance
| Dimension | Pay-and-move-on | Evidence-built dispute |
|---|---|---|
| Erroneous invoice | paid as a cost of doing business | challenged with a documented case |
| Evidence gathered | none | gate timestamps, discharge dates, free-time terms |
| Outcome | margin leaks silently | erroneous charges waived or recovered |
| Effort profile | low per invoice, high in aggregate | repeatable once the case format exists |
Aide, the agentic AI platform for customer experience, builds the dispute case the moment a D&D invoice thread is classified: it pulls the gate timestamps and free-time terms, checks them against the charge, and drafts the challenge with the evidence attached. It holds one hard line, it never concedes liability without human approval, and the Action Trace records every step it took to assemble the case. The rest of the freight billing picture is on [Aide for logistics and freight](/industries/logistics).
Frequently asked questions
- What evidence wins a detention and demurrage dispute?
- Timestamps. The vessel discharge date, gate-in and gate-out records, terminal appointment availability, and the free-time terms in the contract or tariff. If the clock started on the wrong event or ran through days the terminal was inaccessible, the record shows it.
- How long do you have to dispute demurrage charges?
- The window is set by the carrier's tariff or your contract, and it is often short, sometimes 30 days or less from the invoice date. That is why disputes need to be built as invoices arrive, not batched at quarter end.