ICC Digital Library Forum

We have a client who is a textile merchant. We issue L/C's to a variety of countries, but the consistent factor about them is that they spell out special conditions and documents required in great detail.
One of their clauses requires the packing list to show bale markings
with the proviso that '(bale markings must include width and construction of the cloth and quantity in each bale)'
The documents we receive just give the total amount af cloth in the shipment in the bale markings.
Should we be picking this up as a discrepancy.

Thanks and regards

Peter

Peter,
from my point of view the l/c conditions are quite clear by requiring
"bale markings must include width and construction of the cloth and quantity in each bale".
Just indicating the total amount of cloth would not be sufficient for me.
But nevertheless you should convince your client to avoid "excessive details in the Credit" as stipulated in Art. 5 a (i) of the UCP.
Regards
Christa

I do fully agree with Christa. What she said would facilitate greatly the process of our business would L/C be issued as simple and clear as possible.
Roland

Thanks for the replies.

It seems to me that the textile trade seems to generate long winded L/C's, particularly if the goods are being shipped into the USA. Extremely detailed invoices and beneficiary's certificates seem to be a feature of this particular trade.

Regards

Peter

Altho I agree with the basic idea of not putting excessive details in credits, in the case of textile merchants and their requirements for knowing exactly what the bales contain I can understand their problems.

In fact most of the merchants never even see the goods but resell them (and reinvoice them) according to the information on the documents they received in the credit. That is the reason I have been given by the textile merchants themselves, so I suppose it's fairly difficult to give less details and satisfy their requirements.

How this will ever work out in electronic trade situations, I can only speculate, but then when will we ever manage to get e-credits off the drawing board?

Best regards
Judith

Just felt like following Judith’s lead here.

In general I also agree that “excessive details” should be avoided. I think however it is fair to say, that if you are an importer, you should be careful how little you write in the L/C application.

I have just had a case where one of our customers revived a large shipments of shower cabins. They were supposed to be white – but turned out to be violet!
The goods description in the credit was something like “According to PI XXX”; and the documents did not mention colour at all – so documents was compliant. The buyer tried to get a court injunction – but was not successful. My guess is that he would probably have had a better case altogether had the L/C mentioned “White shower cabins”.

I think it was Einstein who said: “Everything should be made a simple as possible, but not simpler”

Have a nice weekend.

Kim