DC Insight

Because URDG 758, ICC's revised rules on demand guarantees, will enter into force on 1 July, we have included a special section on guarantees in this issue of DCInsight. The section contains a carefully thought out critique of the rules by N.D. George, one of our regular contributors; a response to George by Glenn Ransier, a member of the URDG Drafting Group; a look at how the revised URDG is likely to be accepted in the Arab world by Mohammad Burjaq; and a recent case on guarantees decided by a UK court and described in detail by Roger Fayers. N.D. George believes that there are many positive provisions in the new rules, including, for one, linking the language of the URDG with that of UCP 600, but he believes that other provisions could have been improved. Glenn Ransier, in his response, argues that "the URDG is the correct and best set of rules to govern a demand guarantee." Ransier may well be right and, in any case, time will tell.

We haven't neglected our focus on L/Cs in this issue. Our Documentary dialogue zeroes in on a recurring question: the nature of drafts and how they should be viewed in credit operations. Our two writers, Ofei and Kim Christensen, state the obvious: "When it comes to a draft and how it should be treated under L/Cs, international standard banking practice is far from clear." And in our Expert commentary, one of our new writers, Rupnarayan Bose, takes another look at negotiation, this time from the point of view of contract law. We've run a long series of articles on negotiation in the past, but since we thought Mr Bose approached it from a new angle, we have given his piece a certain prominence in this issue.

We've said it before but repeat it here: if you have an issue you'd like for us to cover, let us know about it.

Ron Katz
Editor