Strange Customer Behaviour While Engaged in L/C Litigation

L/C Monitor, Volume 6, Issue 4, July - August 2004

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In my experience, clients engaged in litigation (when I refer to my professional obligations, I use the legal term ‘clients’; when I refer to customer services, I prefer the lay term ‘customers’) exhibit some strange behaviour. I am glad to share with readers of LC Monitor my personal observation in the hope that this behaviour can be avoided by being aware of it.

1 . The Garbage In Garbage Out (GIGO) Rule

When I receive documents from my clients, I often have the following problems:

The documents are incomplete. Some important documents are missing, for example, a letter of credit (LC) is sent but not all the amendments.

The words in one or more corners of a document are cut off during photocopying.

...

The GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) rule also works in my profession. A client may lose a case because ...

This phenomenon is so common that I have had to put a specific guide, ‘General Procedure for an Enquiry of Our Expert Services’ (http://www.tolee.com/html/col405.htm), in the ‘Enquiry’ section on the homepage of my LC website www.tolee.com to save time on my part that should be more productively used in resolving the dispute.

2 . Dual Standards

A customer making an enquiry usually expects me to ...

3 . Catch the Cat instead of the Mouse

When a beneficiary receives an LC, he does not check the content carefully and lets the soft clauses (such as ...) go unnoticed. When the applicant wishes to refuse the documents, he can always create discrepancies from these soft clauses.

However, when the same beneficiary asks for the services of an expert witness, he becomes ...

4 . The Little Expert

From my experience, lawyers and bankers create no problem. Bankers know the UCP 500 in depth and they do not raise educational queries. For complicated issues, they also quickly understand our opinions that are based on UCP 500. Lawyers, if they have chosen our services, listen to our proposals and rely on our expertise to help them resolve cases.

The troubles most often come from those customers who know something about the UCP 500 but not to the level of a CDCS (Certified Documentary Credit Specialist). However, they think that they know it all. They often ask a lot of ...

5 . Babysitting

Some people are just not the litigation kind. Once they are involved in litigation, they become ...

6 . Putting Words in Another’s Mouth

An expert witness has a duty to the court and must be independent and impartial. Some lawyers ...

7 . The Picasso Story

Some clients do not realize the value of expert witness service. They think that ....

8 . Brain Pickers

Some enquirers are very smart. They want to pick my brain and have no intention of paying me. Usually they just send me the queries by email and ask me to provide my opinions. I do not respond to such queries unless they have subscribed as a premium member of my letter of credit website www.tolee.com after paying CAD96 a year. Then they may send me simple queries.

Some brain pickers are very smart. They start their emails by ...

Mr. T. O. Lee FAE, MCIArb, MITD is a consultant, expert witness, trainer, and arbitrator specialized in resolving international trade disputes involving letters of credit, bills of lading, charter parties, Incoterms 2000, trade frauds, and China trade. He represents Canada in various ICC Commissions, such as Banking, Commercial Trade Practice, Electronic Commerce, Mediation, and Arbitration. He was appointed by ICC Paris in 2003 as a Member of the UCP 500 Revision (UCP 600) Consulting Group and is rated as one of the nine best letter of credit specialists in the world in a recent global survey by L/C Views of USA. He is a member of the United Nations International Multimodal Transport Association, Geneva; Accredited Arbitrator of the International Center for Letter of Credit Arbitration, USA; a Fellow and an Accredited Expert (Letter of Credit) of the Academy of Experts, Gray's Inn, England; and a columnist in ICC Documentary Credit Insight (1994-1999); 'Maritime Asia/Intermodal Asia' by Lloyd's of London Press, and 'Hong Kong Economic Journal.' He works closely with the ICC Commercial Crime Bureau on commercial frauds involving bills of lading, air waybills, and letters of credit. He also provides training for the carriers, freight forwarders, bankers, traders, insurers, and lawyers on these subjects. Articles on bills of lading, letters of credit, CDCS exercises, highlights of dispute cases resolved, and training programmes can be found in his website http://www.tolee.com.

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