CAF - Currency Adjustment Factor - Surcharge applied to freight rates by shipping lines or set by liner conferences on behalf of their members. The purpose of the currency adjustment factor is embodied in the E.S.C. (European Shippers' Councils) / C.E.N.S,A. (Council of European and Japanese national Shipowners' associations ) Code. It is to ensure that the revenue of the shipping lines is unaffected by the lines in relation to the tariff currency. The code provides formulae, adopted by many conferences, for calculating the CAF and, since the values of currencies can move upwards as well as downwards, the CAF which is normally expressed as a percentage of the freight, maybe negative as well as positive. Thus a tariff rate of $100 becomes $108 when subject to a plus 8 per cent CAF.