| Abstract [eng] |
Vilnius University Master of Law thesis paper „Legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation“ This Master of Law thesis paper is denoted to current legal issues of using bills of exchange and promissory notes in civil circulation. Paper starts with setting the context of the regulation for the bills of exchange and promissory notes, starting with short history and finishing with current laws – accession of Lithuania to the 1930 Geneva Convention providing a Uniform Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes and subsequent harmonization of the local Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes, following with supporting bylaws. Next is described the origin of bills of exchange and promissory notes as an stand-alone unilateral contract, typical civil circulation of bills of exchange and promissory notes, differences from the similar legal and financial instruments. In the main part of the thesis paper the theoretical and practical issues of the civil circulation of the bills of exchange and promissory notes are examined, according to statute law, academic papers and court ruling precedents. Starting points are issues with a form of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies of the subject of bills of exchange and promissory notes, deficiencies in the written clauses on the bills of exchange and promissory notes, and then the power of the bill of exchange (called “unconditional order to pay” in the Lithuanian language) to the drawee (called “payee” in the Lithuanian language) is examined. The paper follows with the examination of the effects of the expiration of the time limits, then the relation of this commercial paper and the civil contract it serves is discussed, followed with the issue of double payment (of the bill of exchange or promissory note and the main contract), multiple issues on the enforcement process, then the final discussion on the legal proposal to discard the public registry of the protested bills of exchange and promissory notes on the basis of its low profile usefulness. The alternate proposition to extend the public registry to defaulted (and proceeded to enforcement) bills of exchange and promissory notes is made aimed to increase its usefulness. The conclusions are made that court rulings in Lithuania are still volatile, academic papers are scarce, some issues, compared to other 1930 Geneva Convention providing a Uniform Law for Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes countries are ruled differently, though the laws are the same. This highly probably adds up to the reserved and cautionary usage of bills of exchange and promissory notes in the civil circulation. |
