The Legal Risks Of Electronic Letter Of Credit

With the rapid development of Internet and e-commerce, international trade gradually goes electronically. Electronic commerce is bound to bring electronic payment methods. Since the birth of letter of credit, it has greatly promoted the development of international trade, known as the "life blood" of international trade. Under the information age, the letter of credit has also changed and constantly experienced electronic innovation, developing from the traditional paper-based one to electronically issued letter of credit, and further to online credit, which is now moving onto complete electronic letter of credit.Widespread practice of electronic credit depends on sound technical measures and legal measures. In the current area when electronic technology is not fully developed, legal norms are more significant to guarantee the safety and smooth transition of electronic letter of credit. However, Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits have considerable limitations as to perfectly solve the problems generated in the practicing of electronic credit. Therefore, it is of both theoretical and practical significance to research on the legal risks that may exist in the practicing of electronic letter of credit, and to raise feasible measures to deal with those risks on the basis of research.This paper is divided into four chapters:Chapter One overalls describe the electronic development of letter of credit, the international practice, new connotation which electronic credit given to the important principle of the traditional credit, challenges from electronic credit to the traditional credit business, which raise core issues of this article and lay the foundation of further theoretical studies for the article at the same time.Chapter Two respectively discuss the legal risks that may exist in electronic letter of credit, including the risks in the electronic credit trading mechanism, the risks in the unfair liability beard rules and the risks in the absence of suitable dispute resolution system.Chapter Three proposed various feasible measures to deal with the legal risks on the basis of the deep analysis in the Chapter Two, such as refining the rules in UCP600and eUCP, setting up a fair mechanism to burden the risk, improving dispute settlement mechanism of electronic credit and so on.Chapter Four put forward concrete proposals as to effectively prevent the legal risks in the practicing of electronic credit of China on the basis of thorough analysis.