外文翻译信用证.doc

南京理工大学泰州科技学院毕业设计(论文)外文资料翻译学院（系）： 经济管理学院 专 业： 国际经济与贸易 姓 名： 孟姣姣 学 号： 06090215 外文出处 : Omer F. Hershey. Letters Of Credit J. Harvard Law Review, 1918 (1): 1- 6 附 件：1.外文资料翻译译文；2.外文原文。 指导教师评语： 外文原文为国外原版学术期刊论文，内容与学生毕业论文选题有较强的相关性。翻译字数符合规定要求，译文较为流畅，内容基本上忠实原意，主要内容翻译正确，某些句子的译法可以改进。 签名： 2010年 4 月 24 日附件1：外文资料翻译译文信用证普通信用证通知，为游客所熟悉，在贸易和金融业务中从来没有起过的重要作用。我的目的不是要直接论述这种形式的信用证，而是要讨论日益严重的产生自公海贸易融资中的所谓“商业信用证”的各种形式的法律上的困难。这种贸易融资方式在我们国内业务中并没有大量使用，而仅仅自世界大战以来已经为我国外贸所普遍使用。由于这个原因，尽管在现在的商业中，这些信用证拥有了极大地的数额，但它们表现出的形式和内容却非常缺乏统一性，而且有些在它们的实际解释中缺乏确定性以及它们的法律范围和意义。商业信用证，尽管在我们的企业界使用了很长时间，但是并没有获得任何一种种类，形式或者法律意义上的统一标准。它们可能仅仅是非正式意见，或者有点正式的由买方借鉴某些国内或者国外的银行家来授权，或给银行指示在某些条件下接受供应商的草案，或者有时他们仅仅只是要求进行谈判而达成的买卖草稿。通常在银行确认受信人的信发出后，商业惯例视此为“确认信用证”，那些人便拥有了保兑权，依据其条款的规定，向保兑银行要求付款，没有追索权。非专业人士认为，并非没有司法授权，似乎把这个认为是对合同的一种保证。极为重要的是在这些信用证中附属于单词 “确定的”和“不可撤销”，即使被说是“确认”和“不可撤销”，虽然在实践中也是这样认为，但是可能在某些情况下也无法使所有的成为法律事实。这些信用证随每个案件变化的实际情况而具体制定条件和规定，无论是在实践中还是在我们的法院，似乎还没有解释的非常明确或统一的规则被使用。这是由于事实上在目前的战争之前我们一般的外国企业是以其他方式获得大部分资本的。当我们突然成了世界上极大的销售市场，面对新的和陌生的买家，以及新业务和交流困难，我们的出口商发现，在许多情况下的权宜之计，要求或者是以该汇票提取现金或者是确认的纽约信用证；结果，这套在这里有时多年来一直运作良好而且在熟悉的国外使用的信用证策略，很快开始广泛使用。是否将在战争后被广泛使用，仍有待观察。而一般的美国出口商守旧的希望销售获得的是现金或等值的汇票，在伦敦贴现市场可能下降，改变国际贸易，银行，国外商业不稳定，新的和实验性的市场和类似的，很有可能倾向于对这些信用证的更为广泛的应用，并为它们在商法中取得确定的地位。但无论如何，它们在过去四年的增加使用不久必将给我们的法院带来一系列各种令人困惑的问题。一份英国和美国关于这一问题的研究揭示了论述和解释的很大的不确定性和含混不清。常见的信用证通知是给收信人的要约，或者通常是向世界要约，同意接受他们对要约在条款和规定上的约束。因此我们将找到提供或接受的这种理论以免使得应考虑清楚的其他原理影响判决理由。其他决定给予这些信用证的特性和可转让票据的特点，从而达到没有法律或事实的合理结论。其他人把它们当作合同的担保或金钱持有的另一个使用，或钱生钱的合同，并收到了它们。作为它们的第三个用途和好处，被其他人视为双方之间的合同。其他在禁止的基础上准许解除或者作为实体法的一部分被商人所支持的商业惯例和各方的解释所接受。显然，这是重要的，无论在商业和法律上，以确定是否可能作为健全的法律理论适用于这些案件。如此，不仅是为了避免由于不必要的困惑造成的混淆情况，而且是让商业界能够更有把握和安全的处理这种已经设计出来的贸易和金融工具。多种的实际问题对商业界的进口具有深远的影响，同时采用的说明和这些信用证的解释的法律理论即将产生。举例来说，和我们一直以来不得不使用的货币理论相比，如果我们要继续在提供理论，可撤销性问题上进行研究，就必须确定不同的方式。如果这些信用证的解释，例如，作为担保，它们实践的可行性受到我们法律的很大阻碍。因此，法院适用的法律理论，不管它可能是什么，将不仅仅取决于这些信用证应该使用的标准形式，而且应该取决于这些实际的问题来最终处理，不断出现，而且注定提起诉讼，可转让的；可撤销的；作为销售和交货合同的条款解释，信用证和销售合同的关系，在某种程度上这样的销售合同，明示或者被暗示，应该或者就是信用证的一部分；由于销售合同未能完全执行而导致的信用证未被执行和争议被认为是违反了这份合同；发行人及其他各方有权在以下情况下终止付款：由于不可抗力事件，政府禁运，征用船舶等导致销售合同未能执行的情况；当事人破产；持有者或者发行人企图废除；制定或者信用证发出的买卖双方的变化产生的影响；信贷采购欺诈或者未经授权的信用证。法律理论的应用也可能取决于解决问题的需要，现在似乎有所被忽视的，至于银行如何制作出色的信用证是依据会计处理或者国家银行法的。试图达成适用于任何法律的这些信用证的健全的理论，很自然地变成他们的最初目标。信用证是一种旧大陆商法惯例，直到17世纪才被重新理解。当时，通过与欧洲的贸易，该惯例才开始为我们所认知，我们的法院结果自然，在我们的商法合并时期，在指导解释大陆的书籍，并从这些书中引用出现在我们最早时期的信用证使用情况。这个问题在大陆有一个简单理论上的发展，给商业思想带来了影响，承诺在业务发展过程中所作的理论可以强制执行。在英美法中，另一方面，伴随曼斯菲尔德产生的，成为明确的习惯，一个商人的书面承诺在商业交易中并没有指出本身不足的法律义务，因此，大陆理论不能通过。其他方面的原因，部分经济，无法承担在工商业重视，结果似乎没有已对他们有足够的诉讼，迫使信用证的工作做出一致的法律理论。当战争爆发时在我们的对外贸易中所需的新的信贷产品，那自然就是商业信用证，有些是我们暂时不使用的，但在国外普遍使用的，通过确定其法律性质和影响来填补这一差距应该不需要太多的考虑。在对有关商业法的大陆论文中关于信用证的讨论对我们来说最熟悉的是传统的旅行信用证，针对特定的通信人，一组通信人或者大至世界（在后一种情况下被称为信用证通知），要求受信人或收件人在限期内向持有人支付一定数额的款项或给予信贷，并同意为此对收信人负责或者为此接受收件人的账单。大陆法关于信用证的说明对于我们来说重要性是双重的。首先，正如我刚才所说，我们从大陆图书和日常实践中的到了这个想法，并且它已经使其在他们的商法中得到了最充分的发展；其次，一直以来，由于是大陆资源的主要来源，因此在它形成时期的任何一次的商法讨论中都是以类似于民法的形式被提及，并被法律认可的。此外，在目前的联系中，恰好欧洲大陆商法能够提供给我们两个卓有成效的建议：一个是，在处理商业承诺时可以依据其本身可强制执行的观点；另外一个是，实际处理像开信用证这种事情和作为像货币一样另人信服的证据被获得和被承认并且被受信人持有、使用。根据法语书籍记载，信用证的成立需满足两个方面，取决于它是否被信用证的发行者和代理银行或者信用证的发行者和持有者同时接受。就前者而言发行者和代理银行同时接受法国以一种授权任务的形式对待信用证。委托以古罗马法的方式办理意味着一项交易的处理一方同众所周知的代理一样将交易交给另一方，向大家都知道的代理人一样，授权去做某事，据此代理人去完成考虑之中的事，并借以获得报酬。附件2：外文原文（复印件）LETTERS OF CREDITThe ordinary circular letter of credit, familiar to tourists, has never played much part in the operations of trade and finance. My aim is not to deal immediately with this form of letter but rather to discuss the legal difficulties growing out of the various forms of so-called commercial letters of credit used in financing over-seas trade. This method of trade financing has not been much used by us in our domestic operations, and has come into common use in our foreign trade only since the war. On this account, in spite of the enormous volume of business in which these letters now figure, they show a great lack of uniformity in form and content, and some lack of certainty in their practical construction and their legal scope and meaning.Commercial letters of credit, while in use for a long time in our business world, have attained no standardization either of kind, form or legal construction. They may be mere informal advices, or more or less formal authorizations from a purchaser to draw on certain bankers here or abroad, or directions to given bankers to accept vendor drafts on certain conditions, or sometimes they are merely requests to negotiate the sale of such drafts. Ordinarily where a bank confirms to the addressee the issuance of a letter, commercial usage regards this as a confirmed letter of credit, entitling those to whom it is confirmed, upon compliance with its conditions, to look to the confirming bank for payment, without recourse. The lay mind, not without Judicial authority, seems to regard this as a sort of contract of guaranty. Great importance is attached to the use of the words confirmed and irrevocable in such letters even though what is said to be confirmed and irrevocable, and is so regarded in practice, may not in some cases be so at all in legal fact.The conditions and provisions of these letters vary with the exigencies of each case, and no very definite or uniform rules of construction, either in practice or in our courts, seem yet to have been attained. This is due to the fact that before the present war our general foreign business was for the most part financed in other ways. When we suddenly became the worlds great selling market, confronted with new and strange buyers, and new business and exchange difficulties, our exporters found it expedient in many cases to demand either cash with the order or confirmed New York credits; with the result that this letter of credit device, which for many years has worked well on occasion here and which was in familiar use abroad, came quickly into extensive use. Whether it will be much used after the war remains to be seen. The provincial desire of the average American exporter to sell for cash or its equivalent with his order, the possible decline of the London discount market, changes in international trade and banking, commercial instability abroad, new and experimental markets and the like, may well tend to a more extensive use of these letters of credit and procure for them an established place in the law merchant. But in any event, their increased use during the last four years is bound presently to bring to our courts a variety of perplexing problems.A study of the English and American decisions bearing on the subject discloses much uncertainty and ambiguity of construction and interpretation. The familiar circular letter of credit is an offer addressed to given addressees, or to the world in general, agreeing to be bound by their acceptance of the offer within its terms and provisions. So we shall find this theory of offer and acceptance made the ratio decidendi in cases where other elements clearly should be considered. Other decisions give these letters the attributes and characteristics of negotiable instruments; and so reach conclusions not justified by the law or the facts. Others treat them as contracts of guaranty or of money held to the use of another, or money had and received. Others treat them as contracts between two parties for the use and benefit of a third. Others grant relief on the basis of estoppel or by upholding the customary commercial practice and interpretation of the parties as part of the substantive law merchant. Obviously it is important, both commercially and juristically, to determine if possible a sound legal theory applicable to these cases.This is so, not only in order to avoid confusion where confusion is unnecessary, but to enable the commercial world to deal with more confidence and safety -with this instrument of trade and finance which it has devised. A variety of practical questions of far reaching import to the commerical world impend upon the legal theory applied to the construction and interpretation of these letters. For instance, if we are to proceed on the theory of offer, the question of revocability must be determined differently than if we proceed on the theory of money had to use. If such letters are to be construed, for example, as guaranties, their practical feasibility under our law is much hampered. So that on the legal theory applied by the courts, whatever it may be, will depend not only the standard form these letters should take, but also the ultimate disposition of such practical questions, constantly arising and sure to be litigated as, assignability; revocation; construction of the terms of the contract as to sale and delivery; the relation of the letter to the contract of sale and the extent to which such contract of sale, expressly or by implication, should be or is part of the letter; failure of complete performance of the contract of sale giving rise to the letter, and controversies as to breach of such contract;rights of issuer and other parties in case of a notice to stop payment; rights in case of failure to perform the sale contract because of force majeure, government embargoes, commandeered ships, etc.; insolvency of parties; attempts at rescission by holder or issuer; effect of changes made or of dealings had between purchaser and vendor after issuance of letters; procurement of the credit by fraud or unauthorized use of the letter. And on the legal theory applied may also depend the solution of the question, now apparently somewhat ignored, as to how a banks outstanding letters of credit are to be treated in its accounting or under the national banking law.In trying to arrive at any sound theory of law applicable to these letters, one naturally turns first to their place of origin. The letter of credit is an old institution of continental commercial law, well understood as far back as the seventeenth century. When, through trade with Europe, the institution became known to us, our courts turned naturally, in our period of absorption of the law merchant, to the continental books for guidance in construing it and copious citations from these books appear in our earliest letter of credit cases. The subject had a simple theoretical development on the continent which gave effect to the mercantile idea that a promise made in course of business is enforceable. In Anglo-American law, on the other hand, in the generation following Lord Mansfield, it became definitely settled that a merchants promise in writing made in a business transaction did not suffice of itself to create legal obligation, hence the continental theory could not be adopted. Other reasons, partly economic, prevented letters of credit from assuming much importance in our commerce and as result there does not seem to have been sufficient litigation over them to compel the working out of a consistent legal theory. When the outbreak of the war required new credit devices in our foreign trade, it was natural that the commercial letter of credit, somewhat dormant with us, but in common use abroad, should be employed to fill the gap without much consideration being given to its legal character and implications.The letter of credit discussed in the continental treatises on commercial law is of the sort most familiar to us as the conventional travelers letter, addressed to a particular correspondent, a group of correspondents or to the world at large (in the latter case called a circular letter of credit),requesting the addressee or addressees to pay money or give credit to the holder up to a certain amount within .a time limited and agreeing to become responsible therefor to the addressee or to accept the addressees bill therefor.The importance to us of continental law as to letters of credit is twofold. In the first place, as has been said, we got