Letter of Credit Forum

Article 13 UCP 600 was drafted in order to conform with the URR Uniform Rules for Bank-to-Bank Reimbursement (URR 525). The URR 525 were in need of reform and  have been replaced by the URR 725 which entered into effect as of October 1, 2008. 

This means, that the URR are still separate from the UCP and have to be specficially referenced in order to make them part of the agreement. Unless such a reference exists Article 13 UCP 600 governs the obligations of the banks regarding reimbursement. 

The ICC stresses that the URR 725 should not be seen as a revision of URR 525, but rather as an update, to change the style to match that of UCP 600. For example changes include the removal of capitalization of terms and the removal of (s)?s because under UCP 600 ''words in the singular include the plural and in the plural include the singular.''

Article 13 b (ii) UCP 600 is identical in substance to Article 19 b UCP 500 according to which a claiming bank is not required to supply the reimbursing bank with a certificate of compliance. This results from the reimbursing bank not examining the documents, but only facilitating the reimbursement between issuing/confirming bank and nominated bank. 

The UCP 600 introduced for the first time that the reimbursement authorization should not be subject to an expiry date.