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Comments and Suggestions |
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Comments and Suggestions |
Disclaimer
- The names of the parties, as well as the data and information in the cases stated below, have been sanitized in order to protect the identity of the parties involved. The complexities of the cases have also been simplified to facilitate easy understanding of the key issues involved.
- Our expert's opinions do not necessarily reflect the views of the ICC or the ICC Commission on Banking Technique and Practice. No legal imputation should be attached to any of the contents of the cases and no legal responsibility is accepted for any errors, omissions or misleading statements or opinions caused by negligence or otherwise. Our expert's opinions are given for your reference only and you should not rely upon or act on our opinions, of which we are not held liable. You should consult your legal counsel or other experts for their opinions in your specific cases.
- No article, opinion, or comment can be reproduced in whole or in part without our express written permission.
10 February 1995
ICC Publishing SA
38, Cours Albert 1er
75008 Paris, France
Attn : Ms. Pascale Reins
DirectorMr. Ron Katz
Editor, Documentary Credits Insightcc : Mr. Charles del Busto
Chairman, Commission on Banking Technique & Practice
International Chamber of Commerce
(by separate mail to Florida, U.S.A.)
Dear Ms Reins and Mr. Katz,Thank you for your letter of 30 January 1995 enclosing a copy of the first issue of the Documentary Credits Insight (the DCI) by priority airmail.
I am now trying to approach the bankers in the bills departments as area correspondents. I shall let you know their names and addresses once they have shown interest.
I am pleased to let you have my comments below on the first issue of the DCI.
Firstly, please allow me to congratulate you for a very informative, authoritative, interesting and readable publication.
The Update and the Report mainly focus on UCC Article 5. All the legal cases involve mainly USA. For those who have not much dealing with USA, they are not quite useful as a reference material. I doubt very much whether we can rely on an USA case as a precedent case in the high court in Hong Kong. That is also the reason why they have a very limited subscription in Hong Kong. Hence, I would suggest the DCI to cover world-wide cases other than USA cases to increase its popularity. In the footnotes of Bernard S. Wheble's "Expert Commentary" and Professor E. P. Ellinger's "Documentary Dialogue", a few LLoyds Law Report cases and Singapore Law Report cases are mentioned. This is a very good start.
However, I would suggest the DCI to add a "Legal Case" column to analyse the important cases, particularly those giving the court decision to those articles of the UCP 500 that may vary from one country to another, such as "negotiation", "reasonable time", "fax as an acceptable document in court", "immaterial discrepancies", "international standard banking practice", so on and so forth.
On top of these, in my UCP 500 workshops with the Chartered Institute of Bankers, Hong Kong Branch, I do use a lot of famous legal cases in marine transport related to bills of lading which have an important bearing on documentary credit operations, such as the Cox, Paterson & Co. v. Bruce & Co. (master only responsible for quantity but not quality in a bill of lading), Oricon Waren-Handels GmbH v. Intergraan N.V. (legal effect of "said to weight..." etc.), Parsons v. New Zealand Shipping Co. (shipping marks do not form part of description of goods) and many others. I do hope to share with the DCI readers all these important cases because bankers are usually not so concerned about transport, particularly in radically new concepts in moving of cargoes in multimodal transports, as evidenced by the reports from the DCI correspondents in Denmark and Sweden on pages 20 and 21 of the DCI.
I appreciate very much the sugar exports fraud on the front page by Eric Ellen. My congratulations to the editor in choosing the right topic for the front page of the first issue. Frankly speaking, I have successfully stopped three companies in Hong Kong just in good time before falling into the traps of the claimed sugar brokers in Brazil. There is one common element amongst these three cases. All the companies involved have no sugar trading experience before. I have dealt with a few back-to-back credit frauds involving banks in Korea and Hong Kong. However, as these cases are still on trial or pending for appeal, it is not possible to say anything further here. However, when the cases are published, I may contribute articles from an inside man perspective, if situation permits.
The "Fraud Alert" column is the sort of information the readers are highly interested, other than getting the distorted stories from the gossip channel. As a consultant on documentary credit, I find this kind of information very important.
The "Insight Interview" with Charles del Busto is a very important article as it discloses from the horse's mouth the ICC's attitude on hot issues like "negotiation", "non-documentary conditions" and "EDI and the future". It also clears the mist and confusion created by the latest issues of the Update on the rumoured "UCP 600" and "Position Paper" issues.
The column which I, as a consultant, as well as the local bankers, find most interesting, is the "Queries and Responses" which should be a very strong selling point for the DCI. I find this column most useful in clearing the doubts, misinterpretation and disputes about the various articles of UCP 500 and the international standard banking practice. I would suggest that the questions (and answers) from the various National Committees of ICC be published in this column so that other areas may not need to ask the same question again. From my experience, the bankers in Hong Kong would subscribe the DCI just for this column alone.
For the "Documentary Dialogue" column, I would like to point out a typographical error in line 10 in the left block on page 13. "10 (b) (iv)" should be "9 (b) (iv)". I appreciate the idea to put two different views on the same issue side by side for the readers to make their own personal judgement. This treatment is particularly suitable for highly controversial topics such as "negotiation".
As EDI is becoming more and more important, in an era of information technology, it is important to update the readers with the latest position in electronic banking and communication technology in international finance sector. Personally I doubt very much whether the document checkers who are used to check paper based documents can carry out the document examination on the CRT screen efficiently or comfortably. They may find it much easier to perform their duties after making hard copies from the screen. When the computer is introduced, we are told that it can save a lot of paper. However from our experience, the reverse is true.
The "Trader's Corner" column provides stimulating thoughts to those who habitually put the blames to the articles of the UCP 500 for the chaotic situations they have encountered. From my consultancy experience, I share the same view with the author. Some people are either too careless in reading the text of the articles or making a lot of assumptions or perceptions in interpretation of the articles. Otherwise position paper numbers 1, 3 and 4 should not be necessary.
The "UNCITRAL Update" and "Inside ICC" columns are important for those forward looking traders and bankers engaged in international trade. From my view, as the standby credits are being used more and more creatively in the USA, it may not be an easy task to make the rules covering all the different applications of this instrument.
The "Individual Country Reports" column is another important selling point for the DCI. The information from other parts of the world are crucial for the bankers as well as the traders. However, if answers can be provided by the ICC Group of Experts to the questions raised in the report, such as those questions from the correspondent in Belgium, it will be even more helpful to the readers.
The "News Briefs" is another good selling point for the DCI. I am interested in the article mentioned under "Bills of Lading (Hong Kong)" and would appreciate it very much if you could send me a copy of this article. If it relates to my article in the "In Practice" column in the Intermodal/Maritime Asia magazine published by the Lloyds of London Press, I would like to make some clarification to ensure my real intention is not misunderstood.
In the caption of the first column, 'L/C "remplacement" (eastern Europe)', in which "remplacement" should be a typographical error of "replacement".
I also appreciate the thoughtful arrangement to provide the contact addresses, telephones and fax numbers of the authors in various columns so that those interested in the topic can easily contact the authors for follow up actions. This can save a lot of time and effort for the DCI readers as well as the editorial staff of the DCI. Bravo to this customer-friendly and thoughtful arrangement!
I also suggest to add, wherever possible, a brief illustration of the legal cases mentioned in the footnotes. They should be very helpful for the readers to understand more clearly on the issues under discussion.
For your information, I am now promoting the DCI in my Friday column "T. O. on Trade and Commerce" in the Hong Kong Economic Journal, the most authoritative Chinese finance newspaper in Hong Kong read by the bankers, investors, traders and the government officials.
Incidentally, please amend my address in your record as follows:
Mr. T. O. Lee
T. O. Lee Consultants Ltd
1305 Workingfield Commercial Building
408-412 Jaffe Road, Causeway Bay
Hong Kong(Note: We have moved our office to Toronto since February 1, 1996)
Starting from 1st of January 1995, the digit "2" should be added to all telephone and fax numbers in Hong Kong. Hence my telephone and fax numbers should be:
Telephone : (852) 2838 5888 Fax : (852) 2591 0406 [Note: Our New Telephone No. in Toronto: (905) 237-6465 and Fax No. (905) 237-6867]
Wishing you a very prosperous Year of the Boar,
Yours sincerely,
T. O. Lee
TOL/pk
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(905) 237-6465 |  |
(905) 237-6867 |
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