Since the publication of the first edition of this Guide in 2011, the URDG 758 have become the incontestable body of rules governing demand guarantees and counter-guarantees across continents, economic sectors and industries. Mandatory guarantee forms in public procurement contracts are now open to the URDG in many countries around the world. The vision of the drafters of the URDG 758 of a balanced body of rules bringing the seemingly conflicting interests of beneficiaries, applicants and guarantors to an ideal equilibrium has been vindicated.

The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) has endorsed both the URDG 758 and the ISDGP. Both FIDIC and the World Bank have incorporated the URDG in their model forms of guarantees. Bank supervisors have recommended their use to supervised banks as effective unfunded credit protections under the EU Capital Requirements Regulation and other similar capital adequacy rules around the world. Courts and arbitral tribunals around the world have applied the URDG to resolve intricate disputes. The ICC Task Force on Guarantees, the world’s foremost body of demand guarantee experts, continues its monitoring of demand guarantee practice and acts hand-in-hand with the ICC Banking Commission’s technical advisors in crafting advisory opinions on the ICC banking rules, including the URDG, that have been the hallmark of the ICC Banking Commission for a century, the authority of which is acknowledged by courts and tribunals around the world.

This new edition of the Guide recaptures this incredible wealth of know-how and places it in the hands of users and researchers around the world. Knowledge cannot and must not be the sole privilege of a few lucky insiders. In this second edition of the Guide, the authors share their unique experience in crafting international guarantee rules, practising and litigating guarantees in a broad array of fora, ruling on guarantee-related disputes as judges and international arbitrators, and advising on countless guarantee terms and structures in all sectors of trade and industry, including in some highly improbable situations that are recounted in the Guide. The authors are blessed with a vast network of friends and correspondents from around the world who readily share with them invaluable feedback, case studies, guarantee and court precedents. It is this collection of best practice that constitutes the bedrock of the URDG, the ISDGP and this new edition of the Guide.

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The most important development in the period spanning the publication of the two successive editions of the Guide is unquestionably the adoption by the ICC Banking Commission on 31 March 2021 of the International Standard Demand Guarantee Practice (ISDGP), following an international vote by all ICC national committees. The ISDGP have since then been published as ICC Pub. No. 814 in ten languages, with the English original remaining the authoritative version. Referenced in the definition of “complying presentation” in article 2 of the URDG as a method for determining compliance, supplementing, where necessary, the express terms of the guarantee and the URDG, the ISDGP have now been non-exhaustively codified in 215 provisions encapsulating the current state of international standard demand guarantee practice. It is the indispensable companion document to the URDG, going beyond the mere examination of documents, to cover all the stages in the life cycle of a demand guarantee and counter-guarantee. Collected during a decade of the application of the URDG 758 in thousands of transactions identified by ICC members as international best practice in demand guarantees, but also from mishaps that led to costly court proceedings, the ISDGP offers an unparalleled insight into the correct application of the URDG in a practical context.

This Guide is the first publication that provides an authoritative commentary on both the URDG and the ISDGP, taken together. It is expected to offer the key to a sound and predictable guarantee practice, thus meeting the expectations of risk managers in banks and businesses as well as their supervising authorities.

In revising this Guide, the authors have corrected a few benign errors that found their way into the first edition, the spotting of which is owed to our enthusiastic readers from around the world. We have also added chapters that reflect new preoccupations in international guaranteed business and incorporated new policy decisions issued by the ICC Banking Commission on rules and practices that are common to the UCP and the URDG. We have also kept the stage-by-stage analysis of the life cycle of a typical demand guarantee followed by an article-by- article commentary on the URDG and the ISDGP. While this may occasion some repetition, experience and feedback from our readers have shown that offering those two parallel paths to make the most of this Guide is the better choice.

Particular care has been put into enriching the alphabetical index that enables readers to pinpoint the paragraph where a particular issue is discussed. With our Guide having reached maturity, we hope that everyone can now make the most of the stable and profitable demand guarantee practice offered by the URDG-ISDGP- Guide triptych.

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Acknowledgements. We would like to express our deep appreciation to ICC Publishing and especially to Aisling Achoun, ICC Publications Manager, for so skilfully masterminding the publication arrangements. Our warm thanks are also due to Roderic Kermarec for his examination of the entire text, helpful suggestions for additions to the work and resolution of formatting issues; Jeff Dombrowski, ICC Design Lead; Carole Moy, Editorial Designer and Daniel Stephens for his meticulous scrutiny of the work as copy editor. To all of them we are deeply indebted.

We take great pleasure in presenting to the world this second edition of the Guide. We hope our readers find in it the support they seek for their URDG guarantee practice and that they enjoy reading it as much as we have enjoyed drafting it together.

Roy Goode and Georges Affaki
Oxford and Paris
Michaelmas 2024