Customary Criteria on the Compliance Duty of Commercial Invoice in the Export Trade

수출거래(輸出去來)에서 상업송장(商業送狀)의 일치성의무(一致性義務)에 관한 관습적(慣習的) 해석기준(解釋基準)

Recently, the export claims related to the compliance of the commercial invoice are increasing. This paper aims to review the basic requirements of the invoice, and two theories on the document compliance, i.e., the strict compliance and the substantial compliance, and to analyse the substantial compliance of the invoice through some recent cases under the UCP 500, ICC's opinions and the International Standard Banking Practice (ISBP). As regards the compliance of the invoice, a majority of the cases has held that it must comply strictly with the credit terms ("strict compliance rule"). However, a minority of courts and credit industry standards such as the UCP and ISBP published by ICC take a different approach, infusing the credit law notions such as equity, "substantial compliance rule", etc. The extent of the substantial compliance of the invoice is particularly explained in the above-mentioned invoice paragraphs of the ISBP and supported by a large number of ICC's official opinions. Especially, the parties and descriptions in the invoice must correspond with those in the credit, being not inconsistent with the other documents. Other issues related to invoices such as a tolerance of the quantity, the amount, and the number of originals or copies, etc. must comply with the credit terms substantially.