Now that legal publishers Sweet & Maxwell has published the second edition of A Practitioner’s Guide to Trade & Commodity Finance, this not only reflects the international flavour of trade and commodity finance and in particular the challenges of emerging markets but provides a vital practical guide to market participants.

Deutsche Bank’s own Guide to Trade Finance, published in May 2020, has enjoyed significant market reach and has been downloaded many times. It provides basic definitions and explanations, but those seeking greater understanding of the legal framework that supports trade finance flows and assets could consult A practitioner’s Guide to Trade & Commodity Finance 2^nd edition as well.

The law and practice covered is dated at 31 March 2021, explains Editor Geoffrey Wynne of Sullivan & Worcester UK LLP in his preface. This article reproduces Wynne’s introduction and overview to trade finance in its entirety. Below is a summary of contents.

Although the actual book was published before the Ukraine/Russia conflict unfolded, it underlines the importance of solid trade finance structures that can stand up in adverse circumstances. Wynne told flow, “The events the world witnesses – from conflicts to political instability – including current events in Ukraine, bring into sharp relief their effect on trade and commodities, in particular in emerging markets. This was already a challenging time in terms of supply chains, Brexit, Covid and so on. This fully updated Guide should prove useful to all practitioners in this space, helping them to navigate practical issues when financing trade, as well as providing an in depth look at the latest digital developments.”

1. Introduction and overview [reproduced below]
2. Pre-export, prepayment and other forms of structured trade finance
3. ECA financing
4. Documentary letters of credit and documentary letters of credit facilities
5. Standby, demand guarantees and bonds, and the rules that can govern them
6. Warehouse financing
7. Taking security in emerging markets
8. Commodity ownership and special purpose vehicle structures
9. Receivables finance: forfaiting, factoring and invoice discounting
10. Receivables finance: supply chain finance
11. Participations and other forms of risk sharing techniques
12. Islamic trade finance
13. The use of insurance in trade and commodity finance
14. The use of fintech in trade finance
15. Legal and regulatory issues in trade finance
16. Perfection and enforcement of security
17. Waivers, standstills, and workouts in trade finance
18. Insolvency and related final insolvency procedures

1.1   Financing world trade

“One of the most powerful influences on human activity is the driving force of trade. Governments may be overthrown, wars may break out, large areas of a country may be devastated by natural disaster, but somehow traders find ways of establishing and continuing business relationships.”¹

The financing of world trade has been, and continues to be, the focus of a large number of banks and financial institutions. Much has been written about the fact that it is considered to be relatively safe as a form of lending. Indeed, over the years there have been many statistics designed to show that losses on loans made for trade purposes are very low indeed. At the same time, there are issues, and regulators remain keen to see trade finance undertaken in a safe and secure manner.

This remains true despite recent global developments like the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020/2021. Trade finance has continued to show its resilience and its ability to reinvent itself and to innovate. More types of players than ever are involved in different aspects of trade finance.

This second edition of A Practitioner’s Guide to Trade and Commodity Finance looks at a number of aspects of how the finance industry and loan markets, with lawyers and innovation from technology and trade bodies, have and are supporting international trade and the need for trade as part of the domestic and global economy. This book is accessible to anyone new to the topic of trade finance, from practitioner, financer, trader, lawyer, business-person, or student. It predominantly covers English law, one of the key legal systems used in international trade and international financing, with some insight into other legal systems by way of examples.

Much of the focus of trade, commodity and export finance relates to the financing of trade from the emerging markets into developed markets. So, those looking to finance trade and entering into a variety of trade financing transactions are often governments, government-owned entities and banks in those emerging markets with, from time to time, a growing number of acceptable privately owned companies in those emerging markets. That is not to say that there is no financing of trade between the companies and countries in the developed world nor, indeed, any shortage of financing opportunities between entities in different emerging markets. This latter market is often called south-south financing. The main thrust of this book is looking at financing the flow of goods from emerging markets into developed markets and many of the ideas and structures apply equally to south-south trade. In some cases, techniques described will also apply between parties in the countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

1.2   Trade debt

From time to time, there are defaults in the emerging markets and at these times there is an increased focus on whether or not particular debts relating to trade should have some form of priority in any restructuring or insolvency of the relevant counterparty. This leads to discussions about whether there is any such priority or whether there should be priority in the future. Much of this debate revolves around what might be called “trade debt” or “true trade debt”. Sometimes these definitions cloud issues that could be solved by better and safer structuring of the financing in the first place. This chapter gives an overview of some of these points and there are chapters within this book designed to explain and assist in the various aspects of trade finance and how to structure financings in the trade finance world.

“The creation of a receivable from the sale of a commodity can itself produce different ways of providing finance”
A Practitioner’s Guide to Trade and Commodity Finance, Second Edition

1.3   Forms of financing

Financing often requires a lender and a borrower. Trade finance invariably involves other parties. There is, more often than not, an underlying commercial transaction for the sale and purchase of the goods being financed. In addition, other parties can be involved in the commercial transaction, including looking after the goods (in warehouses or on ship) and transporting them. The position of these third parties is looked at in various of the structures discussed, particularly in Chapters 2 and 6.

There are many varied forms of financing to support trade transactions starting with straightforward lending through to the use of letters of credit, demand guarantees, bonds and equivalent instruments. These instruments are looked at in Chapters 4 and 5.

In addition, the creation of a receivable from the sale of a commodity can itself produce different ways of providing finance. Many of these are considered in Chapters 8, 9, and 10 which cover a variety of receivables financing techniques, namely, commodity finance, forfaiting, factoring, invoice discounting and supply chain finance. Supply chain finance hit the headlines in early 2021, with the collapse of Greensill Capital which went into administration in the UK in March 2021. While the trigger for the collapse was: (i) its insurer refusing to renew the credit insurance; and (ii) subsequently Credit Suisse freezing its supply chain finance funds, it was the use of “future” or “prospective” receivables as the lending base which seems to have brought the downfall. Where supply chain finance and other receivables finance use issued invoices, relying on prospective receivables from prospective customers effectively meant this was akin to making a lending decision on an unsecured basis or on the basis of a potential business strategy rather than on the basis of the existence of financial assets at the time. See Chapter 10 Receivables Finance: Supply Chain Finance for more information. The more basic forms of structured trade and commodity finance still form a large part of financings and these are considered in Chapter 2. Chapter 6 considers warehouse financing, which is also a large market. With trade being such an international activity, the export credit agencies (ECAs) in a number of states support certain types of transactions. Chapter 3 provides some insight into the structures and types of financing and support ECA’s can provide.

Where the taking of security over goods is not necessarily the best solution, it is open to a financer to acquire the goods itself and be part of a transaction whereby it provides the financial support by owning goods for a period and then selling or re-selling those goods to receive repayment of the funds it has used. There are difficult legal issues in the analysis of any such transaction. For the financer to benefit from being an owner, the transaction must satisfy the test of being a “true sale”. Title must pass to the financer and the financer should have the rights and risks of being an owner. If this is not the case, there is the risk of the transaction being “recharacterised” as a loan financing. The financer could then be considered an unsecured creditor of its customer in any insolvency. Chapter 8 in particular, looks at how to structure and how to deal with these problems. As the concept of “true sale“ is key to a number of structures, other chapters also refer to it where useful to do so.

1.4   Other areas for financing

While a large part of trade finance involves conventional debt finance provided by banks and other financial institutions, there is a growing market in the use of Islamic finance techniques. Chapter 12 looks at these.

It is clear that all financial markets are becoming more regulated and the trade finance market is no exception. Since the implementation of Basel II it has become increasingly useful to have forms of “risk mitigants” and to seek better balance sheet treatment of financings that are supported by risk mitigants. Chapter 13 looks at insurance as a risk mitigant in trade and commodity finance.

A wider look at regulatory issues in trade and commodity finance is the subject of Chapter.15 touching on the increased regulation on capital requirements from Basel II to Basel III and beyond. Other risk mitigation techniques, are covered in Chapters 11 and 13.

1.5   What is trade debt?

There has been a historical perception that trade debt would always be treated better in restructurings and insolvency than other unsecured debt. This is probably true, but such better treatment has not been simply because the debt was called “trade debt” or because the financing was for “trade-related purposes”. Invariably, and particularly when a country is seeking to restructure its foreign debt, decisions have to be made about which debt should be paid and which debt should be restructured, which debt should be paid in full and which debt should suffer a “haircut”; in other words, receive only a partial repayment either immediately or over a period.

Since the 1980s where there were defaults in certain Latin American and Eastern European countries, decisions had to be made by governments on how to deal with any rescheduling of debts. In many of these cases, the debt moratoria imposed by these countries contained an exclusion allowing payments to service offshore short-term debt to continue. Short-term debt was often classified as debt with a maturity of up to 180 days and it was permitted to pay this debt in full. As much trade-related debt is short tenor, (particularly payments under letters of credit, which have an average tenor of 115 days) this exclusion of short-term debt erroneously came to be seen as an exclusion covering all trade-related debt, regardless of tenor. It was on the basis of this historic precedent that arguments have been made that all trade debt should therefore be paid in priority to other debts. There is currently no general precedent for this at all. This is not even the case where it is the debt of a country being restructured and certainly not where it is the restructuring of a corporate entity. This is true even if that entity has strategic importance to its place of incorporation or is wholly or partially state-owned.

In certain major corporate restructurings in the late noughties, for instance the Kazakh bank restructurings,² debt restructurings were made subject to a new restructuring law.³ Under this restructuring law, decisions were made on a case-by-case basis as to whether a particular class of debt should be paid in priority to other classes of debt. In one case, where the defaulting bank had sufficient cash, a defined class of “trade debt” was indeed paid in full in priority to others. In the other case, a different defined class of “trade debt” received better treatment, but still with a haircut. However, this preference given to some trade debt was not given because trade creditors had any legal entitlement to be preferred. The restructuring decisions for both these banks were reflected in part of a contractually agreed package, not one dictated by law. The legislative changes introduced by the restructuring law did not give any type of priority to trade debt, it merely introduced “cram-down” provisions so the restructuring plans could be made to bind all creditors, not just those that supported the restructuring plan.

In more recent times, there have been defaults by major companies with non-payments of receivables which has again triggered discussion on what should be categorised as trade debt and what should be bank debt.⁴ Rating Agencies have expressed concerns about the time granted for receivables to be paid.

“This book looks generally at the financing of trade and specifically at how to structure to enhance the chance of recovery”
A Practitioner’s Guide to Trade and Commodity Finance, Second Edition

Debate will continue as to what trade debt should be. This book looks generally at the financing of trade and specifically at how to structure to enhance the chance of recovery. It is difficult to avoid a conclusion that “trade debt” or “true trade debt” should be related to debt arising from the financing of the sale and purchase of commodities or other goods. Since those debts relate to existing goods and their purchase, they are likely to be of a short-term nature. Chapter 17 looks at methods of restructuring and Chapter 18 looks at insolvency.

1.6   Who should benefit from trade finance?

Various chapters discuss how to finance the production of saleable goods and then the sale of those goods to a buyer. The book looks at the various ways that financing might be made and to whom. Its primary focus is on international financers making those funds available. However, it is often the case that those funds are not made directly to a producer or exporter of commodity but instead are routed through local banks. Where payments are routed through local banks this has advantages, as the local bank would be able to monitor what is going on locally with the borrower. That bank would also have local knowledge of the market. There are often other benefits in areas such as the taking of security, which can be done in different ways over the assets in different forms, (goods, rights, receivables and cash) in different jurisdictions and these are looked at in Chapter 7. There can be disadvantages to routing payments through a local bank where a local bank itself has financial problems. This is particularly so where the international financer has provided funding on an unsecured basis rather than taking security over the local bank’s loan. It could leave the international financer as an unsecured creditor of the local bank.

In many cases, international financers route their financing through major trading companies. They, in turn, provide finance to local exporters in emerging markets.

1.7   Sanctions and other legal problems

Both the export and import of goods are crucial to most economies. This is equally the main thrust of trade finance. It is, therefore, not surprising that the interruption of income from the export of goods and/or an attempt to ban the import of prohibited goods is a weapon in the armoury of bodies like the United Nations and the European Union in an attempt to demonstrate their disapproval (and sometimes more) of a particular regime. This has a major impact on trade finance and an increase in risk of which banks financing trade should be aware. It is common to see a set of sanctions being imposed on borrowers requiring them and any collateral support provider to comply with sanctions from the UN, the EU, the US, and the UK, (the UK has had its own sanctions regime since 2018 in anticipation of Brexit (see s.1.8), and any other jurisdiction relevant to the transaction and parties. This can be tricky to navigate especially as there can be multiple sanctions and some may overlap or contradict each other. Chapter 15 looks briefly at sanctions.

In the increasingly regulated world there are other areas of concern running from bribery and corruption to the general imposition of restrictions on how banks lend which Chapter 15 explores.

1.8   Brexit: The UK’s withdrawal from the EU

Following the referendum in 2016 on whether the UK should leave or remain as a member state of the EU, the UK left the EU on 31 January 2020. However, until the end of the implementation period, at the “IP completion day”, 11pm on 31 December 2020, EU rules, directly applicable regulations and implementation deadlines for EU directives applied to the UK. From the IP completion day as defined in the European Union (Withdrawal Agreement) Act 2020, which amends the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018, the laws of the UK have supremacy over the laws of the EU. The UK Government undertook a huge legislative project to bring onshore to the UK many EU laws, the majority of which came into force at the end of the IP completion period, at 11pm on 31 December 2020.

On 24 December 2020, the EU and the UK agreed the form of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement between the European Union, the European Atomic Energy Community, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, (TCA). The TCA is a treaty between the UK and the EU under international law. It was approved by EU member state ambassadors and was finally approved and signed by the EU on 30 April 2021, but provisionally came into effect on 1 January 2021. On 30 December 2020, UK Parliament was recalled to debate and passed the European Union (Future Relationship) Bill which received Royal Assent on the same day. The European Union (Future Relationship) Act 2020 covers some aspects of the future relationship between the UK and the EU mainly about security (criminal records and exchange of information), tax and VAT, transport and trade, regulation, energy and nuclear. One notable exception is financial services as the UK statute implementing the TCA contained no substantial legislation in relation to financial services between the EU and the UK, other than a framework for cooperation.

Notwithstanding Brexit, English law remains one of the key legal systems for use in international finance and in trade and export finance. Whether or not there is an EU element to a transaction, English law is recognised as a valid choice of law in many countries. In the EU-related transactions, the EU courts will also recognise English law and the English courts will recognise the laws of the EU member states as EU regulations Rome I and Rome II were brought onshore to the UK as retained EU law.

In relation to choice of court agreements on recognition of jurisdiction and judgments, on 1 January 2021 the UK became a member, in its own right, to the Hague Convention on Choice of Court Agreements, however the Convention had been applicable and in force in the UK since October 2015 when the EU became a signatory. The Hague Convention provides protection to exclusive jurisdiction clauses within its scope (e.g. it does not cover insolvency) and awards recognition to the judgments of those courts. From 1 January 2021, the Recast Brussels Regulation ceased to have effect between the courts in the UK and EU member states. The TCA did not contain any provisions relating to judicial cooperation on civil and commercial matters, although it did contain provisions dealing with criminal cases and matters of counter-terrorism. At the time of writing, the UK needs the consent of the EU for the UK to accede in its own right to the Lugano Convention on Jurisdiction and Judgments.⁵

Financial services and financial regulation are under review in both the UK and the EU and in some areas a standstill is in place until March 2022, so pre-existing rules will apply. For other areas, each of the UK and the EU is starting to amend its legislation e.g. the UK’s Financial Services Act 2021, and in the EU its amendments to the Capital Requirements Regulation and the Bank Resolution and Recovery Directive. However, global cooperation on other areas of financial regulation e.g. on the Basel III implementation relating to capital adequacy requirements and the reform of benchmarks and financial markets’ move away from the use of LIBOR, means that the UK is looking to much wider cooperation with financial regulators and central banks worldwide and not simply focussing on EU requirements. This is key to the trade and export finance sector which works across continents and uses the US dollar as one of its prime units of currency and pricing.

1.9   COVID-19 pandemic

Readers of this book will, no doubt, have themselves lived through and experienced some aspects of how, from March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic, affected personal life, family life, business, international and domestic travel, supply and demand and movement of goods. While the world quickly went into lockdown from country to country to protect itself and its citizens against the virus, flights were grounded, international deliveries held up and the financial services and legal markets carried on working from home, as best they could. The need for essential businesses and trade to continue brought with it increased use of electronic signatures, electronic documents and electronic due diligence.

Businesses, financial institutions and law firms have had to work more nimbly and use technology on an every-day basis to assist with cross border and domestic transactions to counteract the lack of physical proximity. Countries brought in emergency legislation, giving the executive extraordinarily wide powers to make laws, to change laws, to restrict personal and business freedom, including powers to take action to lockdown nationally or impose restrictions on different geographic areas within their state. With that, however, also came, certainly in the UK, furlough schemes for businesses and employees, protection of tenancy rights, protection of businesses from insolvency proceedings in some situations and a lengthening of the period for registration of charges. The UK implemented temporary and permanent insolvency reforms through the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020, the temporary measures to put on hold and prevent certain insolvency measures so that businesses required to close at the order of the government due to the pandemic would not be immediately brought into insolvency proceedings. At the time of writing, those protections are due to end in summer 2021, however the UK Parliament has power to extend those as need be.⁶ Unfortunately, these stays have not managed to help all businesses survive and some have had to close or have fallen into insolvency.

Trade and exports have continued and the financing of them likewise, after an initial hiatus. Later in 2020, financings were back on the cards with a renewed enthusiasm for the use of electronic documentation. With the electronic Payment Undertaking (e-PU) a contract-based solution, the UN Model Law on Electronic Transferable Records, the draft URDTT⁷ and the consultation by The Law Commission for England and Wales on Digital Assets and its draft Electronic Trade Documents Bill, there seems real momentum to use the experiences of lockdown to make the law meet the technological advances and needs of the global markets and move into the digital era. It is fair to say that the lockdowns which were imposed as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic created the immediate need for enhanced use of technology and have catapulted the need for advances to be developed and recognised in law.

References in this book to the COVID-19 pandemic will be made in relation to the situation under English law, as necessary.

1.10 The approach of this book

This book approaches trade finance in the widest sense. It looks into the world of structured trade and commodity finance, which is described by many as the basis of the finance world. At a time of financial crisis there are calls for a culture of “back to basics”. This would mean returning to financings in the trade finance world that are better structured along the lines contemplated by the structures explained in Chapter 2. At the same time, there remain issues as to who might have access to funding in this way. The stance of lending only to those who have borrowed before still continues. So-called “track record borrowers” have much greater access to the trade finance debt market than others. By following the structures outlined in Chapters 2 and 6, it would be possible to finance not just track record borrowers but debut borrowers in the marketplace. Given other potential tools, including the use of special purpose vehicles, transactions could be insulated from failure so long as the party producing the commodity is able to continue doing so. However, that is never the end of the story since production has a cost and goods have a price at which they are sold. There have been examples of situations where production costs have exceeded sale costs, with potentially disastrous consequences. Structuring and indeed restructuring may be necessary. Being aware of those risks is part of the due diligence that remains a requirement of a successful financing.

“Even as the trade finance market continues to develop, a number of the old rules of “follow the goods, follow the cash” continue to apply”
A Practitioner’s Guide to Trade and Commodity Finance, Second Edition

Even as the trade finance market continues to develop, a number of the old rules of “follow the goods, follow the cash” continue to apply. Many, but by no means all, trade financings have monitoring and have structure. Given the wide range of possibilities, this book explores different areas that might be utilised as part of the building of a successful trade finance portfolio.

Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, there has been a growing concern as to how banks should deal with each other in financings. The period after Lehman also saw defaults by banks in the emerging markets so the problem was not confined to one market or another. Structuring requires a look at not just who the borrower is but also who the co-financers are.

There are many aids to documentation some ongoing and some in development. These include recommended market documents to deal with the financing itself as published by bodies like the Loan Market Association (LMA). Rules that deal with the issues of particular instruments are promulgated and/or revised from time to time. Demand guarantees can be made subject to the Uniform Rules for Demand Guarantees (2010 Revision, International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) Publication No.758) (URDG) and documentary letters of credit issued subject to the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits (2007 Revision, ICC Publication No.600) (UCP). Standby letters of credit themselves can be issued under UCP or under their own rules of International Standby Practices ISP98 (ICC Publication No.590) (ISP 98). The forfaiting market has developed rules for its market in the creation of a payment claim and its transfer. The Uniform Rules for Forfaiting (URF) were published in the latter part of 2012 and the Uniform Rules for Bank Payment Obligations (URBPO) in the latter part of 2013. Most recently, and in some ways as a successor to URBO due to certain structural problems with it, there are the Uniform Rules for Digital Trade Transactions (URDTT) published by the ICC and discussed in Chapter 14.

Organisations like “BAFT”, the Bankers’ Association for Finance and Trade and “ITFA” the International Trade and Forfaiting Association, cooperated to produce other standard documents for participations discussed in Chapter 11.

All of these rules and documents assist in the creation of a basis for making available trade and commodity finance.

1.11 What about the risks?

There are always risks that apply to financings whatever these financings are. At various stages in this book, those risks are analysed and suggestions are made about the transfer of those risks to other parties, the mitigation of those risks and, indeed, how to accept them. At different times, different risks are at the forefront of a financer's considerations and those of its credit committee. The risks include production and performance risk, which is clearly key to the creation, export and sale of particular goods. Where those goods are produced and whether or not the country concerned would allow free export are considered in country risk. Part of this analysis is whether there is a likelihood of government intervention, which would adversely affect the flow of the goods. Certainly, within this area the importance of the goods and the identity of the borrower should be considered.

On the basis that the receivable generated by the sale of the goods is generally crucial to many of the financings that are contemplated, there needs to be evidence satisfactory to the financer that the quality of the goods produced will be satisfactory to the buyer. More importantly, whether the buyer can and will pay, and at what price, is all part of the analysis of the payment risk. Mitigation of that risk includes assessment of the buyer's creditworthiness and how and what the buyer might pay. The use of letters of credit to mitigate payment risk is considered in Chapter 4. Having a stronger commitment from the buyer to pay, such as an unconditional payment undertaking is discussed in Chapters 5 and 10.

As time has gone on, other risks have emerged that a financer must analyse before it involves itself in a transaction. These include the more general reputational risk that a financer might suffer if it finances what is subsequently considered to be an area where finance should not have been provided or, indeed, it finances a transaction that has a greater likelihood of loss than was originally contemplated. This latter risk, which might affect the credit standing of the financer itself, is important to many financers. The new regulatory approach, as discussed above, and its implications, both in relation to the financer’s own “know your customer” checks and checks of the transaction itself, are all part of the due diligence that follows the consideration of a financing. The whole issue of risk assessment, elimination or at least risk mitigation permeates much of the discussion on structuring throughout this book.

1.12 Summary

This book attempts to bring together all aspects of trade and commodity finance in its various forms. It also looks at issues that need to be considered and explains an approach that can be adopted to achieve successful financing. Equally, it gives guidance should a financing have problems and, ultimately, should it be necessary to enforce security, including as a result of the insolvency of a financer's counterparty.

While many of those providing finance remain banks, there are others who do or may finance the trade market. In recognition of this, the reference to “bank” has been replaced by the more neutral “financer” in many chapters. Trade finance continues to evolve and innovate as said at the start of this introductory chapter. Even although we have brought the second edition of this book up to date as at 31 March 2021, it is clear that there are many ideas and developments in progress yet to come to fruition which makes it an exciting time to be involved in the trade finance sector.

Sources

¹ “Goode on Commercial Law” by Ewan McKendrick
² In February 2009, the Kazakh state nationalised JSC BTA Bank and JSC Alliance Bank, the largest bank and the fourth largest bank in Kazakhstan respectively.
³ The Law of the Republic of Kazakhstan No.185-IV ZRK dated 11 July 2009 on Amendments and Additions to Certain Legislative Acts of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Improvement of the Legislation of the Republic of Kazakhstan on Money Payments and Transfers, Accounting and Financial Reporting, Banking Activities, the National Bank of Kazakhstan. The Law amended various legislative acts in order to establish a legal framework for restructuring the obligations of Kazakh banks. These amendments came into force at the end of August 2009.
⁴ For example, construction companies, Abengoa which was the first example in 2016, followed by Carillion in 2018. See Ch.10 for information on IFRS 9 and supply chain finance and the discussion on the classification of trade debt versus bank debt.
⁵ The EU Commission rejected the application by the UK to accede to the Lugano Convention in its own right. The final decision will lie with the EU member states.
⁶ Some have been extended to autumn 2021 and limited prohibition on remedies to insolvency to March 2022.
⁷ The ICC's Uniform Rules on Digital Trade Transactions.