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As we went to press, the Banking Commission meeting in Singapore had yet to take place. But interest was running high, with more than 175 participants from 35 countries having registered. Clearly, the first meeting of the Banking Commission in Asia for several years - and the first to take place after the approval of the new UCP - attracted a lot of attention.

Highlighting the agenda was a scheduled vote on the updated ISBP. Note the word "updated" rather than "revised". The UCP Drafting Group stressed in its note to the Commission that the only changes being made to the ISBP were to bring it in line with UCP 600, not to undertake a wholesale revision.

What, then, does the "update" consist of? Essentially, it means that much of the previous ISBP will remain unchanged, but certain alterations had to be made, for example, in order to: (1) to remove paragraphs from ISBP that have now been incorporated into UCP 600, such as the paragraphs containing the ICC Decision on original documents, much of which is now found in the new rules; (2) to make technical changes in capitalization, to substitute UCP 600 for UCP 500, to change dates (from 2006 to 2007), etc.; and (3) to incorporate changes in ISBP paragraphs necessary to bring the wording in line with wording in UCP 600, for example, substituting "in conflict" for "inconsistent", and inserting "calendar days", etc. There were other items that were no longer relevant in view of the new rules.

Despite this ISBP being only an "update", documentary credit practitioners are advised to have it at hand, since reliance on the previous ISBP (ICC Publication 645) will not always serve. Note, though, that while the ISBP has become a useful companion to the UCP, the UCP Drafting Group was careful not to describe it as a substitute for the new rules. One sentence in the ISBP Introduction makes this abundantly clear: "The incorporation of this publication into the terms of a documentary credit should be discouraged, as the requirement to follow agreed practices is implicit in UCP 600."

Assuming approval by the Banking Commission in Singapore, the updated ISBP should be ready around the time UCP 600 comes into effect on 1 July 2007.

Another publication on which work continues apace is the Commentary on UCP 600, being produced by the UCP Drafting Group. This will be an attempt by Drafting Group members to explain the rationale behind the changes from UCP 500 to 600. This is a more complicated task, since all nine members of the Group will be contributors to the text. Because of that, the publication date remains uncertain, though hopes are that it will come out in the early days following the implementation of the rules. Unlike the ISBP, which will be an official publication approved by the entire Banking Commission, the Commentary will represent the individual views on the nine Drafting Group members.

Meanwhile, seminars and conferences on UCP 600 continue to proliferate. ICC will be holding its third conference on the rules in Paris on 11-12 June (contact events@iccwbo.org for information), and Gary Collyer, Chair of the UCP Drafting Group, has been to more than 25 countries, explaining the new rules to packed houses. Other members of the Drafting Group have also been on the road, and individual Banking Commission members, including Donald Smith and Frank Reynolds in the US (see their article in the following section) have been conducting seminars in a range of cities. Add to this the online courses on the UCP being offered by DC-PRO (www.dcprofessional.com) and the dozens of articles that have appeared in this publication and others, and it's fair to say that this will have been the most meticulously prepared and disseminated set of rules in the entire history of the UCP.