We have covered this issue on a couple of occasions in the past and remarked on the fact that we do not believe this to be an opportune time for a revision of UCP 600.
A session on the subject was included during the ICC Banking Commission meeting held in Jakarta in April 2017, which provided the results of a consultation with ICC National Committees.
Feedback was received from 20 National Committees. Only one supported a full revision of UCP 600, with three requesting reviews of individual sub-articles.
The comments from ICC National Committees made it clear that any existing problems lie not with the rules themselves, but with their application, i.e., practice ("international standard banking practice") of the rules.
It was highlighted that 50% of the problems applied to the presented documents and that it was a justifiable assumption that a greater understanding of ISBP 745 would help alleviate these problems and greatly reduce this percentage. It was further stated, as regards to the remaining 50%, that it was difficult to see how a revision of UCP would make much of a material difference as many of these causes were outside the scope of correction by the beneficiary.
As we ourselves have stated on many occasions, the majority of problems are caused by:
However, non-justification for a revision does not prevent other routes being taken to alleviate the problems that are being faced. As such, the ICC Banking Commission have recommended three work-streams to be taken forward:
We will comment further on these work-streams as more details appear.