A Complex Dispute Governed by ICC Trade Rule No. 522

We successfully represented Hochdorf Swiss Nutrition in a USD 3.5 million trade finance case against three Egyptian Banks. The exporter, our client, coordinated with a Swiss Bank, who in turn provided the Egyptian banks with documents enabling the importer to release products on the condition that payment was received first. In this case, the Egyptian banks released the documents before collecting the payment.

This case is complicated in that it is governed by ICC Trade Rule No. 522, however there is no legal precedence for a dispute of this nature before Egyptian courts. While letters of credit are governed by Egyptian trade law, cash against documents, which is the inverse of letters of credit, has no legal precedence.

Additionally, even determining whether the case could be adjudicated before Egyptian courts was a hurdle, as the contract’s dispute clause referred to Swiss Courts. However, we argued that even if the dispute proceeded before Swiss Courts, as there is no treaty between Switzerland and Egypt, that court judgment would not be enforceable in Egypt. We were, thus, successful in initiating the trial before Egyptian courts.

Furthermore, the likelihood of securing a favourable judgment against a bank before economic courts was little, as most experts hired in these cases are ex-bankers. However, despite this, we successfully secured a favourable judgment for our client in December 2021. Furthermore, we were able to win the Cassation Challenge in September 2022 as well and collect the full debt owed to our client.