Preliminary remarks

This is the experts' Decision on DOCDEX/216, based solely on the Initiator's request received under their letter dated 28 October 1999.

The case has been conducted in accordance with the ICC DOCDEX rules, ICC publication no. 577, and the decision has been reached with unanimity amongst the three appointed experts.

Parties

Initiator: Company J on behalf of Bank H

Respondent: Company S

The case

This is about the acceptability of a master's receipt presented as one of the required documents under a commercial letter of credit issued by the Initiator in favour of the Respondent.

The letter of credit was subject to ICC publication no. 500, ICC Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (UCP).

The document in question was described in the letter of credit under "Documents required", as follows: "One original phytosanitary certificate has been sent along with cargoes by vessel's master and the relevant original acknowledging receipt signed by ship master must be presented for negotiation."

The master's receipt, which appeared to have been produced by a manual typewriter, read as follows:

MASTER'S RECEIPT
JULY 28,1996
RECEIVED FROM: (NAME OF RESPONDENT)
ORIGINAL PHYTOSANITARY CERTIFICATE COVERING 1479.723 MT (IN BULK) OF CHINESE RAPESEED MEAL EXTRACTION PER M.V."G" FROM LIANYUNGANG TO SOUTH KOREAN PORT. AS REQUESTS I HEREBY AGREE TO TRANSMIT THE CAPTIONED DOCUMENTS TO MESSRS.

The document was signed in the following way: A round stamp stating the name of the vessel in the centre and the name: ABC SHIPPING INC. in the circumference.

Under the stamp was typed:

FOR THE MASTER OF "VESSEL G"

Underneath that was a handwritten signature.

After having checked the documents under the letter of credit, the issuing bank sent its refusal of the documents, in accordance with Article 14 of the UCP, to the presenter, stating as the reason for the refusal: MASTER RECEIPT ... SIGNED BY ABC SHIPPING INC FOR THE MASTER OF VESSEL "G" I/O SIGNED BY THE MASTER OF "VESSEL G".

The question is whether or not this was a valid rejection of the document.

Analysis and Decision

When checking documents presented under letters of credit subject to the UCP, document checkers must follow the provisions of the UCP, which reflect international standard banking practice, and interpretations of the provisions as decided by the Banking Commission of the International Chamber of Commerce as published from time to time.

Sub-Article 13(a) of the UCP states: "Banks must examine all documents with reasonable care, to ascertain whether or not they appear, on their face, to be in compliance with the terms and conditions of the Credit. Compliance of the stipulated documents on their face with the terms and conditions of the Credit, shall be determined by international standard banking practice as reflected in these rules."

It is the opinion of the experts that according to any practice, national or international, a person signing for himself would not write that he was signing "For" himself - or that a person signing "For" someone, is not that someone himself.

In the Transport Articles of the UCP (Articles 23-29), there are numerous examples of the use of the word "For" in connection with signatures, as for example in Article 23 an agent may sign "For" a carrier if the agent states in which capacity he is signing (as agent), i.e., the carrier and the agent are two different persons.

In November 1998, the ICC Banking Commission agreed on a case very similar to the one discussed here that a document signed "for the master", was not signed by the ship's master. This was published as an Opinion of the ICC Banking Commission (no. 470/TA.122) on 17 February 1998.

In consideration of the above stated, the unanimous decision of the experts is that the master's receipt presented under this DOCDEX case did not appear to have been signed by the master.

Consequently, the rejection of the document by the issuing bank was valid.