Legal

Trade Finance Global (TFG), in collaboration with UK Export Finance and the Department for Business & Trade, is set to host a tradecast on 13th September 2023, one week before the Electronic Trade Documents Act (ETDA) comes into force. 

Does a New York court have jurisdiction over an Indian collecting bank that is alleged to have violated the Uniform Rules for Collections (URC 522) for neither collecting and remitting funds to pay for shipments represented by the documents forwarded to it nor returning originals of several of the documents sent to it for collection? 

A judge in a Canadian court case has ruled that a thumbs-up emoji constituted a legally binding acceptance of a contract, ordering the defendant, who failed to fulfill their end of the deal, to pay more than $82,000 in damages. 

In a bid to enhance access to trade for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs), the World Trade Board has recently launched the ‘Financial Inclusion in Trade Roadmap’. The roadmap, developed through collaboration with major industry bodies and international stakeholders, seeks to address the challenges faced by MSMEs to accelerate their participation in global trade.

Despite the widespread ‘backlash’ against ISDS, originating primarily in academia, ISDS offers important procedural protections for foreign investors and should be retained in Free FTAs.

The Basel regulations have been continuously refined and updated to address new risks and challenges in the global banking sector, with the overall aim of promoting financial stability and preventing future crises.

While at the ITFA and BCR: Trade & Investment Forum 2023, Trade Finance Global’s Deepesh Patel was happy to sit down and talk to Lord Holmes of Richmond MBE to discuss what the UK government is doing to support this digital transition.

DLT offers the financial services industry a new piece of infrastructure to push the boundaries of Open Banking. But it doesn’t come without its challenges. TFG heard from tradetech expert André Casterman on future use cases for blockchain in assets, trade and transaction banking.

The digital economy has seen tremendous growth over the past decade for several reasons. This has given rise to a large number of digital assets that are commonly used as part of transactions in digital environments and beyond. 

Trade sanctions are among the many tactics resorted to by the international community in order to compel a state to comply with its human rights obligation. 

At the IIBLP’s Dubai Trade Law & Compliance Conference held in Dubai on 15 March 2022, one of the panellists referred to the Solo Industries fraud in a panel discussion addressing the recent Singapore case, Credit Agricole Corporate & Investment Bank (CACIB), Singapore branch v. PPT Energy Trading Co.

The arguments for digitalising trade processes are well known. Paper-based processes are inefficient, error-prone, and subject to frequent delays––particularly in times of disruption. 

To help combat fraud and provide advice to banks, trade associations, governments, and regulators, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) UK, Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation, and MonetaGo have released their latest whitepaper: Shutting fraudsters out of trade.

A prominent point of discussion at the International Trade and Forfaiting Association’s (ITFA) 48th Annual International Trade and Forfaiting Conference in Porto has been the digitisation of trade finance––particularly after the challenges COVID-19 caused for a largely paper-based industry.

On 12 October, the UK officially introduced The Electronic Trade Documents Bill into parliament, the next step in a long road to shred the country’s legally imposed reliance on using paper for trade documents.