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FINAL DRAFT OF THE UNIFORM RULES FOR DIGITAL TRADE TRANSACTIONS (URDTT)

Voting concluded on 29 June 2021 for the adoption of the URDTT Version 1.0.

The outcome of that voting is that National Committees provided a majority approval for their implementation. The ICC Executive Board also approved the adoption of the new rules at its June meeting.

ICC National Committees' voting results

Feedback

Of the 5 National Committees that voted against the adoption of the rules, 4 highlighted issues that were not directly associated with the text of the URDTT and could be linked with the need for guidance on usage and implementation i.e., 

• Two, although viewing the rules as a valuable initiative, were of the opinion that the purpose of the rules is unclear and that the rules do not appear to meet market demand.

• One, whilstsupporting the concept of the rules, expressed concerns that the draft rules are not ready for commercialisation in the present form as there are still numerous areas where clarity and guidance are required.

• One, while supporting trade digitalisation, believes that the draft URDTT is not yet ready for adoption and will require clarification to address outstanding questions, especially how it links with existing eUCP and eURC.

• The remaining National Committee provided some detailed comments to various articles, despite not providing any comments to the penultimate draft of the rules.

Each of these National Committees will receive a separate response from the Drafting Group.

As a reminder, at the outset of the drafting process and in each of the Drafting Group's written responses to the comments received from National Committees for the five drafts, it has been made clear that commercialisation material to support the implementation of the URDTT will be completed by the Banking Commission Working Group on Commercialisation of eRules - and, as such, that this activity was outside the scope of the mandate given to the Drafting Group. 

As with other ICC eRules (i.e., eUCP, eURC and URBPO), the URDTT has been drafted on the basis of version numbers. The approved text is version 1.0.

The use of version numbers allows for a more focused and shorter revision of the rules as and when technological advances are made or where market trends develop or expand from time to time. For all of the ICC eRules, it is recognised that 5, 10 or 15 year periods before a revision do not fit the digital model and the Banking Commission must be ready to respond at short notice and deliver updated versions as necessary.

The URDTT Drafting Group recognises that this is just the first step in the life of the URDTT and the need for regular versions will need to be constantly reviewed and implemented, as necessary - taking on feedback from the Commercialisation working group and ICC national committees.

Implementation

It has become customary for the Banking Commission to implement new rules at the beginning of each quarter. The voting process did not allow for implementation on 1 July, therefore the rules will be implemented on 1 October 2021. As part of that implementation, the text of the approved rules will be supplemented by material prepared by the ICC Digitalisation sub-stream, Commercialisation of eRules, in much the same way as the appendices that appear as part of the publication of the URDG 758.

In addition, one or more webinars will be arranged around the implementation date to further explain the rules and the commercialisation opportunities.