Logistics Company When dealing with UCP 600, we observe a certain quandary, the bankers, who drafted the

UCP 600, argue that they are not experts in the field of logistics while the logistics companies seem to not much bother about documentary credit transactions and the regulations governing them. However, logistics companies, although not directly involved in D/C transactions, are bound to the rulings of the UCP 600. Thus, UCP 600 also affects them either directly or indirectly. In UCP 600 articles concerning on multimodal documents, bill of lading, non-negotiable sea waybill, air transport documents and road, rail or inland waterway transport documents require these documents to be signed by the carrier, master or an agent authorized and on behalf of the carrier or master . The shipping company should be particularly careful that whoever signed these documents should be in the name of the carrier or master. The revision in UCP 600 helps greatly in identification of carriers and agents. In the revised rules, an agent who signed a transport document must indicate that he or she is an agent. Hence, it would eliminate the confusion that occurred previously during the implementation of UCP 500. In regards to UCP 600 Article 19, it has now a more precise definition of multimodal transport documents and makes clear that when the term multimodal transport document is used, it should also be accompanied by the term combined transport document which would remove confusion. In addition, to further alleviate the ambiguity, UCP 600 replaced the term multimodal transport document with the term Transport document covering at least two different modes of transport Moreover, the term multimodal transport operator used in UCP 500 is now modified to carrier in UCP 600. It is pointed that the modification is because of the changes in th e logistics industry which involve shipping companies requiring only one transport document for multimodal transport. This is due to the fact that transport companies nowadays prefer to conduct the entire duration of the transport of cargo. Insurance Company Similar to the case of logistics companies, the same conundrum also applies for insurance companies. Since the bankers are the ones who formulated the UCP 600, there will be a tendency that they somehow disregard the logistics and insurance companies in drafting the UCP 600 because of their lack of expertise in these aforementioned industries. This is why insurance companies did not care much about UCP 600. Nevertheless, insurance companies should at least be aware of the implications of these rules to them. Similar to the transport documents, UCP 600 article 28a requires the insurance document to be signed by the insurance company, agent or proxy. The insurance company should also take note of a new rule in the same article that states that when an authorized agent or proxy signed

the document, he or she must indicate that he or she is an agent or proxy authorized by the insurance company. One problem in article 28 is in its sub-article e which stipulates that the date shown in the insurance document should not be later than the date of shipment. This provision seems to be not in line with the insurance industry practice because in practice, the date of issuance of an insurance document is indeed the effective date. However, due to this regulation, it would cause a lot of confusion. Nonetheless, the revised UCP 600 have cleared up one of the most significant source of confusion in the previous UCP 500 article 36 and now article 28h. This article states that when the credit requires insurance in an all risks basis, then the insurance document will be treated as all risks coverage whether it is shown in the document or not and all of the exclusions will be disregarded. However, the newly added provision in UCP 600 article 28i solves this problem by allowing the insurance document to contain any exclusion clause. This will be good for the insurance industry because they will not have to worry that their exclusion clauses will not be honored.

Reference Sindberg, Kim. From Beginning to Beginning: Trade Finance Articles from 2003 to 2011. Copenhagen: Books on Demand PmbH, 2012 Burnett, Robin. Bath, Vivienne. Law of International Business in Australasia. New South Wales: McPherson Printing Group, 2009 Rhee, Chase C. Principles of International Trade (Import-Export): The First Step Toward Globalization 5th Edition. Bloomington: AuthorHouse, 2012 Branch, Alan E. Global Supply Chain Management and International Logistics. New York: Routledge, 2009