**When Negotiable Cargo Documents Move Beyond Ocean Bills of Lading: A New Challenge for Letters of Credit and the UCP** Introduction The United Nations’ formal adoption of a new convention on negotiable cargo documents — the United Nations Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents (New York, 2025), also known as the Accra Convention on Negotiable Cargo Documents — marks a notable development in international trade law. For the first time, the negotiability of transport documents — long primarily associated with ocean … Read More
Ocean Bill of Lading with Inland Final Destination — Article 19 or Article 20? Intro One of the most common — and persistent — areas of confusion in document examination arises when a credit requires an ocean bill of lading, but the routing information in the L/C or the transport document refers to an inland final destination. Does this automatically turn the document into a multimodal transport document to be examined under UCP 600 … Read More
Fire, General Average, and LC Obligations Can Documents Still Be Presented — and Should the LC Be Amended? Intro In international trade, accidents at sea are not uncommon. Fires, groundings, and collisions may lead to cargo damage and the declaration of General Average by the carrier or salvor. When such events occur before documents are presented under a letter of credit, issuing banks are often confronted … Read More
Manually Signed Invoice vs. Digitally Signed Invoice When ISBP Default Rules Meet an Express LC Requirement One of the most common misunderstandings in document checking arises from relying on ISBP default provisions while overlooking what the credit itself expressly requires. A typical example is the commercial invoice: ISBP tells us when an invoice need not be signed — but what happens when the LC explicitly calls for … Read More
WHETHER A CONFIRMING BANK IS A NOMINATED BANK — AND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THERE ARE TWO CONFIRMING BANKS INTRODUCTION Questions about whether a confirming bank is also a nominated bank may sound academic at first glance, but in practice they can become critically important — especially when a credit involves more than one confirming bank, a specific place of expiry, and documents moving across several borders. This Q&A examines a real-life scenario involving two confirming banks and explores … Read More
Short Shipment or Not? Clarifying Quantity Requirements When an LC Covers Multiple Lots In practice, letters of credit covering multiple lots of goods often give rise to misunderstandings about whether each lot may be shipped separately — and how the limit on the number of shipments should be interpreted. On this occasion, let’s take a look at an interesting scenario raised by our colleague … Read More
FREIGHT PREPAID VS FREIGHT PAYABLE AT DESTINATION — A LOOK BACK AS TA.958 APPROACHES INTRODUCTION With Technical Advisor Opinion TA.958 now on the table—specifically the question of whether a bill of lading showing both “freight prepaid” and “freight payable at D” should be considered conflicting under a credit that explicitly requires the document to be marked “freight prepaid”—the trade finance community is once again paying close attention. As we all know, the ICC Banking … Read More
When CIF/CIP Value Cannot Be Determined — How Should the Invoice Be Issued? Intro In practice, banks and beneficiaries often face uncertainty when a credit requires a CIF or CIP term but does not state how freight or insurance should be shown. Must the invoice break them down? What if the actual freight or insurance charges are unknown at the time of issuing documents? Mr. Old Man shares some guidance based on ISBP … Read More
Negotiation with Recourse vs. Negotiation without Recourse — What’s the Real Difference? Introduction In export financing, the terms with recourse and without recourse often cause confusion, especially when applied to negotiation under LCs or discounting of drafts under collections. Although both methods provide early funding to exporters, the underlying risk allocation—and therefore the pricing and discounting ratios—are very different. Below is Mr. Old Man’s explanation to a reader who asked why banks … Read More
Applicant vs. Consignee on a Certificate of Origin — Does It Matter? A Practical Q&A with Mr. Old Man In documentary credit work, applicants, consignees, and importers often end up being the same party, yet the terminology on document templates is rarely consistent. A common question is: If the LC asks for the “Applicant,” but the COO form only provides space for the “Consignee,” will banks treat that as a discrepancy? Let’s … Read More