A Study on the Problems and Countermeasures Relative to Negotiation Clause under L/C Transactions in the UCP 600

Purpose - The UCP is recognized as the governing law for L/C transactions, but it covers only the general details of the transaction and does not cover all complex practices. In view of this limitation, this paper examines a negotiation transaction which is most actively utilized in L/C transactions via a thorough review of the UCP provisions, analyzes the problems of the negotiation clause in the UCP, and suggests appropriate countermeasures to deal with unnecessary litigation costs. By doing so, the parties involved in the negotiation transaction would be able to avoid financial costs such as having to pay for lawsuits. Design/methodology - The present study first differentiates the general types of L/Cs (e.g., sight payment L/C, deferred payment L/C, acceptance L/C, and negotiation L/C), explains and the Article 2 and Article 12(b) of the UCP 600 where the term 'negotiation' is used, digs into the drawbacks of 'negotiation' occurring under the UCP 600, and discusses solutions to the problems found by analyzing the drawbacks descriptively. Findings - After a review of the UCP provisions on negotiation in detail, several possible problems which may occur in practice were discovered. First, as the UCP stipulates, the negotiating bank will want to delay payment to the maximum extent possible and make payment on the banking day on which the issuing bank reimburses the amount. This may lead the beneficiary towards bankruptcy or put it in financial crisis. Second, when a fraudulent transaction occurs, the negotiating bank can neither request the issuing bank to reimburse nor can it exercise its recourse right against the beneficiary because it has obtained all the rights of the beneficiary by purchasing the documents. Third, there is a practice in which the beneficiary sells the documents to its transaction bank which is not the nominated bank if the nominated bank specified in the credit is located in a third country or the exporter has no relationship with the nominated bank in the credit. In this case, whether to accept this and reimburse the non-nominated negotiating bank entirely depends on the issuing bank's decision even though such practice frequently occurs in Korea. Originality/value - There has been little research effort pertaining to negotiation transactions in detail even though negotiation L/C transactions account for around 70% in world trade notwithstanding deferred payment L/Cs and acceptance L/Cs that are also negotiated in practice. Thus, if the negotiations clause under the UCP 600 provisions were reviewed and the drawbacks of the negotiation transactions most actively used in L/C transactions were identified and examined, specific countermeasures could ultimately help smoothen the operation of L/C transactions and prevent financial losses.