ICC Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees

The ICC Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (URDG), first adopted  in 1991, reflect international standard practice in the use of demand guarantees while at the same time balancing the legitimate interests of all parties. In the years since their adoption, the URDG have gained increasingly broad international acceptance and official recognition and use by bankers, traders, industry associations and international organizations including UNCITRAL, FIDIC and the World Bank.

More than an update of the existing rules, the revised URDG 758 are a new set of rules for the twenty-first century, rules that are clearer, more precise and more comprehensive. The new rules contain significant changes practitioners will need to know, including:

• New definitions and interpretation rules to provide greater clarity and precision
• The treatment of non-documentary conditions, asymmetrical guarantees and counter-guarantees, incomplete presentations, and many other contentious practices
• A comprehensive coverage of advice of guarantees, amendments, electronic documents, transfers, and other innovative aspects of demand guarantee practice
• A provision on force majeure that triggers an extension of a guarantee for thirty calendar days
• The replacement of “reasonable time” with fixed periods for the examination of demands, the extension of guarantees and the suspension of payments
• A clear layout of the examination process  for demands
• A step-by-step roadmap for handling extend or pay demands
• A checklist of drafting recommendations
• Ready-to-use model forms