ICC Digital Library Forum

The letter of credit issued stated in required documents:"Certificate of Origin of goods"
The document presented: Certificate of origin issued by the beneficiary and certified by the Chamber of Commerce. This document contained corrections which had not been authenticated.
The issuing bank stated the following discrepancy:
"Certificate of origin: alteration are not approved by chamber of commerce (see ISBP Article 9)
The arguements presented to the issuing bank were as follows:
1. The issuance of the letter of credit clearly states in field 46a the following requirement: Certificate of origin of goods. Therefore the document has been issued by the beneficiary and the fact that the chamber of commerce has signed the document is an addition to the document. Since the document has been issued by the beneficiary Article 9 of ISBP645 states this document does not require authentification.
2. The certificate of origin satisfies the credit and ISBP Article 196 and 10 as the documents is issued by the exporter/beneficiary. Therefore this is not a discrepancy.
Your comments would be appreciated.

Dear Samir,
this is very interesting issue - and quite uneasy. There was similar issue discussed at Forum already - see discussion "Authentication by the legalizing party" started by NevinErtan on 9 July.

Best Regards,
Pavel Andrle

Thank you for your reply. I did read that discussion but as our case covers a certificate of origin and not a commercial invoice, I was hoping to obtain specific comments on this case. All comments are welcomed.

Samir,

a standard c/o certified by a chamber of commerce is NOT issued by the beneficiary. The bene may provide all of the information in the c/o, may type it completely and sign it, but that does not constitute issuance by the bene.

A similar situation arises with a B/L, whereby the bene may, if he chooses (and is permitted by local law or custom) take a blank B/L and type it completely, but it does not become valid until signed by an entity entitled so to do, e.g. carrier or agent.

In the case of the c/o, the chamber of commerce controls the issue of the numbered blank c/o to registered parties and gives them authority to complete those c/o only, subject to certain conditions. These blank c/o remain the property of the chamber of commerce and can be recalled at any time if the chamber finds that those conditions have been breached.

I say this only to demonstrate that full control in the issue of chamber of commerce c/o remains with the relevant chamber, regardless of who completes the detail on the c/o.

Laurence

Samir,
I think yr intention is to ignore the certification of the Chamb. of.Com.on the doc.as the Credit did not call any requirement from them and the C/O should be considered to have been issued by the exporter/benef.
I don't agree with you,
The doc meets the condition of the Credit whereas it does not meet Int.Standart Bank.Prac.
The discrepancy raised by the issuing bank is valid.
In this case,if the C/O had an alteration on the name of the country of goods,despite of the certification ,would you accept it?
Yahya,