THE FR AUD EXCEPTION IN DOCUMENTARY CREDITS

Year 2012, Volume: 5 Issue: 2, 39 - 76, 01.06.2012

Nevin Meral

Abstract

The Autonomy Principle in documentary credits sometimes creates unwanted results like the system protecting fraudsters. As the UCP does not include any exception to this principle, common law courts have found a solution to this problem under the Fraud Exception Rule. So, this research considers that, due to the lack of certain scopes, the Rule is far from settled in cases related to the issue of fraud. Accordingly, national courts have applied this Rule in a very divergent manner so the Rule is not consistently implemented in each case. Hence, the underlying purpose of this research is first to argue the inconsistency in cases of the Fraud Exception Rule. Second, the research suggests solutions to this inconsistency with specific reference to the ICC which seems the most appropriate body to legislate the Fraud Exception Rule in the next revision of the UCP

Keywords

documentary credits, UCP 600, fraud exception, common law countries, autonomy principle, ICC, strict compliance principle, letters of credit.

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