International: Trade Finance Insight | Issue 8 | December 2023

In brief

Welcome to this edition of the Trade Finance Insight. In this edition, we lead with a summary review of the highly anticipated revised version of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Arrangement on Officially Supported Export Credits, with a particular focus on the most significant changes that relate to the Understanding on Export Credits for Climate Change that were last amended in 2014.

 


Contents

Secondly, we examine the instrumental role Development Finance Institutions and Export Credit Agencies are playing in countries across Africa in unlocking capital, bolstering private investment in sustainable projects and fostering local production in Africa.

Thirdly, we shine a spotlight on the critical role of project managers in debt for nature swaps, which continue to be a hot topic in both international finance and conservation circles due to their vital importance for conservation.

This being the final edition of 2023, we have then chosen to highlight three cases that have been decided by the English courts this year that are likely to be of significant interest to our readers, namely:

  • Unicredit Bank A.G. v Euronav N.V. – with our analysis considering the impact of this case on the nature and status of the bill of lading and the potential concerns it could raise for financing banks;
  • Re Avanti Communications Limited (in administration) – a case where the English court significantly revisited the vexed issue of fixed and floating charges since the landmark decision in Re Spectrum Plus Ltd [2005]; and
  • CRF I Ltd v. Banco Nacional de Cuba and another – where we consider the important question of what to consider when borrower consent to a loan transfer is required.

Our regular Sanctions and Export Controls update page features some interesting reads on, amongst other things, a summary of the joint guidance from the OFSI and the FCDO on the application of the UK’s “ownership and control” test under financial sanctions legislation in circumstances involving designation of public officials, the EU’s updated list of goods regarded as “economically critical” to Russia and our latest compliance podcast covering the US sanctions system over the Venezuelan government and the latest decision regarding the suspension of the sanctions for the hydrocarbons and mining sectors.

We have included some of our latest resources and tools on both the topics featured in the articles and relating to wider trade finance issues. And finally, we are delighted to share some new awards that the team has won. 

Download Trade Finance Insight report here.

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