The ICC Banking Commission decided not to revise UCP 600 or ISBP 821. The argument: the rules are fine, what's needed is better education and clearer guidance.
Meanwhile, this month's articles all point in a different direction:
A senior counsel walks through nine ways a confirmation can quietly stop being one.
A corporate trade finance head on the bank wording she ends up renegotiating bid after bid.
An ICC Mexico voice argues in a personal capacity that the case for revision hasn't gone away.
And a Chinese Supreme People's Court reversal puts the independence principle itself under pressure.
A nominated bank that confirms a credit may believe it has strong reimbursement rights under UCP 600 Art. 7c. Those rights depend entirely on whether its undertaking qualifies as a genuine confirmation. Senior counsel Michael Avidon walks through nine considerations covering governing law, omitted conditions, curtailment, and forum selection, noting that TAB 13, the ICC Banking Commission's August 2025 briefing on confirmations, left several of the most consequential ones untouched.
Guarantees and standbys often shape a project bid before the contract is anywhere near signed. Nadia Khirddine of AtkinsRéalis offers the corporate-side view of how these instruments get structured, where bank wording and beneficiary demands tend to collide, and how banks can help move a deal forward.
Despite the ICC Banking Commission's March 2026 decision to set aside a UCP 600 revision, Miguel Angel Bustamante of ICC Mexico argues that the case for reform hasn't gone away. He walks through the areas he believes warrant attention and what the wider gap between the rules and the guidance built up around them says about how institutions treat education.
China's Supreme People's Court has reversed course on the function of advance payment guarantees in Changjiang Geotechnical v. China Construction Bank, contradicting its earlier ICBC Yiwu Branch position. Saibo Jin works through how the courts handled force majeure and the independence principle along the way, and what the shift signals for anyone litigating guarantees in China.
Two new conversations from across the trade finance community this month.
We feature DCW Editorial Board Member Michael Evan Avidon, senior counsel and longtime contributor to DCW, whose work on confirmations and standby practice also appears in this release.
We also speak with Christine Sullivan, Associate General Counsel at U.S. Bank, who reflects on her path through trade finance and the practitioner habits that have served her across a career in the field.
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Chris Sandler is the COO of the Institute of International Banking Law & Practice, the organization which produces DCW. Reach Chris at sandler@iiblp.org
Exactly what is an issuing bank authorizing or requesting a nominated bank to do when it requests the bank to “add its confirmation” to a credit? Several considerations and questions should be weighed by a would-be confirmer.
In project-driven industries, guarantees and standby letters of credit shape bids and contract negotiations early. Nadia Khirddine of AtkinsRéalis offers a corporate perspective on structuring these instruments and working effectively with banks.
Judges at three court levels in China erred in deciding on the force majeure defense invoked by an applicant as the basis for an issuing bank’s filing for an injunction. Saibo Jin explains the case and its broader implications.
