The case concerned certain documents being presented by
international bank Crédit Industriel et Commercial, known as CIC,
to China Merchants Bank, one of the biggest and most profitable
banks in China, known as CMB.
CMB refused the documents, alleging discrepancies because, among
other things, “they were not obviously originals and were not
marked as such, and hence had to be treated as copies.”
In answering the question of whether CMB was entitled to refuse
the documents on these grounds, Justice David Steel found that it
is not necessary in "the modern era with its word processors, laser
printers, colour printers, scanners and so on," when documents are
habitually produced by automated or computerised systems, for them
to be marked as originals.
Justice Steel went on to rule that CMB was not allowed to rely
upon any of the alleged discrepancies to refuse acceptance of the
documents.
