Comments on Document No. 470/1135 Draft Opinions

Comments on Document No. 470/1135 Draft Opinions - 11 March 2010

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11 March 2010

470/TA.708

The opinion of “BL stating “Tallinn” as a port of discharge without mentioning the name of the country “Estonia” as stated in LC is acceptable” is valid only on this special occasion. Please bear in mind that in the Lloyd's Maritime Atlas, we can find ports in different countries sharing the same name. I would like to name a few popular ports here below:

Chatham in Alaska, Canada, USA and England.

Georgetown in Guyana, Malaysia, Canada, St. Helena, St. Vincent and USA.

Gloucester in England, Massachusetts and New Jersey in USA.

Kingston in Australia, Canada, Jamaica and USA.

Lagos in Nigeria, Greece and Portugal.

Newport in Dyfed, England, Gwent, Oregon, Ireland and Rhode Island.

Portland in Australia, England, Maine, New Zealand and Oregon.

Victoria in Australia, British Columbia, Cameroon, Guinea, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Prince Edward Island.

Vancouver in Canada and USA.

Hence for these ports, the name of country cannot be omitted and should be stated in LC and BL to avoid confusions. It is hence crucial for the BL to show the name of the country for these ports whether or not it is stated in the LC.

470/TA.708

On page 22, please remove the statement “Absence of the country name is not a reason for refusal, notwithstanding that such words are stated in the credit” for the same reasons as stated above.

470/TA.709

The current revised versions of Institute Cargo Clauses (A), (B) and (C) have already removed the obsolete “Warehouse to Warehouse Clause” concept that has been included in Clause 8.1 (the Transit Clause). Would the Banking Commission issue a statement (such as in dealing with “on board notation” problems) or use this Query to update the document checkers for this fact so that the date of insurance documents should not be an issue from now on for the sake of removing obstacles (already many for the beneficiary to deal with) in LC operations.

470/TA.716

On page 51, item 2, there is a problem for the statement “An invoice that only quotes the name of the applicant, without any address (including reference to their country), would be acceptable under sub-article 18 (a) (ii)”.

If the name of the applicant is stated in the invoice but different from that stated in the credit, but there is no name of country mentioned, then how can the document checker confirm whether this different address in the invoice is in the same country? If it is not in the same country as stated in the credit, then it would be a discrepancy according to article 14 (j). If the checker has doubts on this, it would be automatically deemed to be a discrepancy.

470/TA.720

A statement should be added in either the Analysis or the Conclusion part to clarify that while it is not international standard banking practice to check for detailed calculations in the invoice, yet if the credit states a formula for price calculation (which is very popular in commodities trade), then the document checker must check such calculation for compliance.

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