선박수출거래에서 환급보증(Refund Guarantee) 주요 조항의 법적·실무적 고찰

The Buyer shall demand to the Builder the repayment of the pre-delivery instalments paid in case of the Builder’s default under a ship-building contract. The Buyer require a refund guarantee issued by a financial institution for a security for the repayment of the pre-delivery instalments paid. As the title of a refund guarantee, in practice, is various,we should look into the contents or the expressions in a guarantee to decidewhether a guarantee is a refund guarantee. A refund guarantee, a sort of independent bank guarantee, has characteristic of abstractness, and is independent from the ship-building contract. Arefund guarantee is available against the beneficiary’s first written demand and signed statement certifying that the Builder failed to make the refund in accordancewith the ship-building contract. The guaranteed amount of a refund guarantee will be automatically increased in accordance with the Builder’s receipt of the respective instalment,which is not in the other advance payment guarantee. These characteristics of a refund guarantee are derived fromthe expressions in a refund guarantee rather than inherent therein. This illustrates that careful attention is required to the contents and expressions of themain clauses in a refund guarantee.