After three days of intensive discussions, an ICC working party drafting a proposed electronic supplement to UCP 500 has come up with a revised draft that it will soon send to ICC national committees for comment.

The working party, meeting in Toronto, Canada, worked its way through comments on the first draft of the eUCP, as it is called, sent in by more than 25 ICC national committees. The extensive comments indicated a high level of interest in the project.

No public version of the eUCP is yet available, but it is known that several controversial issues were debated in Toronto.

One of the most controversial concerned what is a "reasonable time" for giving notice of refusal of electronic records. UCP 500 provides for a maximum of seven banking days in the case of paper documents, though, depending on the circumstances of the case, a reasonable time, in certain transactions, could be less than seven days.

In an electronic environment, seven banking days seemed to be an inordinately long period to allow for refusal; accordingly, it is thought that the working party has proposed shortening that period with regard to electronic documents in the eUCP supplement.

Another contentious issue concerned the question of amendments. An earlier draft is believed to have contained a provision suggesting that a notification be sent by the beneficary that the presentation is complete, including acceptance or refusal of all amendments. If no notification were sent, an amendment would be deemed to be rejected. ICC national committees apparently rejected this suggestion almost unanimously.

The eUCP is meant to deal with presentations that are all electronic or those which are part paper and part electronic. It is seen as a bridge between the UCP 500, which essentially deals with paper documents, and the increasing move to all-electronic presentations. The eUCP would have to be specifically incorporated in a credit for it to become effective.

The present time schedule calls for the second draft to be sent to ICC national committees in time for them to respond prior to the May 16-17 meeting of the ICC Banking Commission. The Commission will then review a third draft expected to result from those comments, but it is considered unlikely, though possible, that the eUCP would be approved in May. More likely, it would carry over to the meeting of the Commission on November 7-8 in Frankfurt. If approved, it would go into effect approximately six months later.