ICC Banking Commission Opinions October 2023 – Deep-Dive #5
This is the fifth of five blog posts where I will deep-dive into the Opinions approved by the ICC Banking Commission on their October 2023 meeting.
This blog post will take a closer look at the second part of ICC Opinion TA934rev.
The query relates to an LC that requires an EUR1 certificate. In addition to this, there is a requirement that all the required documents must be issued in English.
The presented EUR1 certificate is issued on an official Czech form. This means that all field headings are in Czech language.
The presented document included the following information:
Field 2 ("Certificate for preferential trade between"): "EU" and "Tunisko" (Tunisko is the Czech for "Tunisia")
Field 4 ("Country, group of countries or region where the goods are considered originating from"): "EU"
Field 5 ("Country, group of countries or region of destination"): "TN"
As you might have guessed, the document was refused. The discrepancy was worded as follows:
“+EUR1 CERTIFICATE NOT ISSUED ONLY IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE AS REQUIRED PER LC TERMS AND CONDITIONS 47A-5 : TUNISKA ...”
So – just to note: The refusal is that 1 (one!) word is not in English.
Also to note: That the issuing bank have misspelled the very word they refuse on the basis of!
As I am sure you can imagine, this was not deemed a valid discrepancy. In the analysis the ICC refers ISBP 821 paragraph A21 (d), i.e., banks do not examine data that have been inserted in a language that is additional to that required or allowed in the LC.
The ICC also note that the issuing bank could determine that the presented document satisfied the purpose of an EUR1 certificate, i.e., it did fulfil the required function by the inclusion of the relevant ISO codes “EU” and “TN”).
So again we are stuck with a rather questionable discrepancy. So let me (for the last time in this “series”) repeat myself:
These wrong, spurious, incorrect, inappropriate, indecent, crazy, silly, ridiculous, and absurd refusals are doing no good to the LC instrument. They are actually doing the opposite. They effectively question the obligation of the issuing bank.
This is therefore not taking good care of the LC. It is the opposite and let’s encourage all to discourage raising such discrepancies.”
Kind regards
Kim
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