Discrepancy: 0 or O

ANeves · Post by **ANeves** » Fri May 03, 2013 1:00 am

We would appreciate your opinions on the case that follows:
Bank I issued a letter of credit where the merchandise description included the reference of purchase order ABC/0-123/X1. Bank C, as requested to, added its confirmation to the credit and latter received a presentation that was considered compliant. Documents were forwarded to the issuing bank who refused them due to the following discrepancy:
-Certificate A and certificate B evidence PO ref. inconsistent within itself.
Acyually, both certificates did show the purchase order reference twice: in the top of the document as ABC/0-123/X1 (with a zero) and in the bottom as ABC/O-123/X1 (with an O as in Oscar).
The letter of credit did not require that the purchase order should be stated in all documents; so, the confirming bank just disregarded the additional reference that did not strictly match the l/credit.
Every other document - invoices included, of course - quoted the purchase order correctly as ABC/0-123/X1.
Since the correct reference (with a zero) was stated in all documents, is it possible to claim a conflict within the document? Wouldn't that be an odd reading of art. 14 (d)? Aren't we simply in presence of a spurious discrepancy?
Thanks for sharing your views.
António

GlennRansier_olsABN · Post by **GlennRansier_olsABN** » Mon May 06, 2013 1:00 am

I do not see the conflict. It states it twice and uses a O and an 0? UCP 14 d. indicates that documents do not have to be indentical, just cannot conflict. An o versus an O is not a conflict.

CarmelBorg · Post by **CarmelBorg** » Sat May 18, 2013 1:00 am

Antonio
This has happened before. See my post of the 19.1.11.
Definetly a case of an overly zealous document checker and you cannot solve this by quoting the rules. I solved my problem by phoning someone higher up at the issuing bank.
Regards
Carmel

SOOEYOUNKIM · Post by **SOOEYOUNKIM** » Thu May 30, 2013 1:00 am

António

Pls refer to DOCDEX260. The decision(1 instead of I)
is very similar to your case.

Regards
Eric

ANeves · Post by **ANeves** » Sun Jun 09, 2013 1:00 am

Thank you so much for your valuable comments. The problem was satisfactorily solved as the issuer recognised the lack of grounds for its position. Anyway, I had the opportunity of contacting Kim Sindberg through L/C Views who, while also considering that there is no conflict whatsoever, raised this very interesting point:
In a Banking Payment Obligation (BPO) this situation would represent a mismatch.
It makes you think...
Regards,
António