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.
The LC concept of negotiation has led to considerable misunderstanding and confusion in practice. In his article, Abdurrahman Özalp attempts to wade through areas of uncertainty and cast light on difficulties that confirming banks and beneficiaries could encounter.
When issuing banks insert complex reimbursement terms and self-serving conditions into their credits, it distorts the purpose of the product, causes problems for confirming banks, and drives exporters away from using LCs.
ICC TAB 9 points out that there is a risk of documents being presented to more than one bank at the same time, especially under an LC that is freely negotiable, but it stops short of making any recommendations for avoiding this risk. Here’s my suggestion.
The silent confirmation market is still active and prevalent for LCs in Asian countries as silent confirmation is one of the means for a beneficiary to mitigate issuing bank and country risk when it does not want other banks to confirm its credit.
The BNP v. Natixis case involved the assignment of letter of credit (LC) proceeds and nomination under an LC, raising legal considerations. The court ruled in favor of the assignee (BNP), stating that Natixis waived any right to setoff when accepting the assignment. A Chinese law view
