2018 New Mexico Statutes
Chapter 55 - Uniform Commercial Code
Article 4A - Funds Transfers
Section 55-4A-204 - Refund of payment and duty of customer to report with respect to unauthorized payment order.

(a) If a receiving bank accepts a payment order issued in the name of its customer as sender that is: (i) not authorized and not effective as the order of the customer under Section 55-4A-202 NMSA 1978; or (ii) not enforceable, in whole or in part, against the customer under Section 55-4A-203 NMSA 1978, the bank shall refund any payment of the payment order received from the customer to the extent the bank is not entitled to enforce payment and shall pay interest on the refundable amount calculated from the date the bank received payment to the date of the refund. However, the customer is not entitled to interest from the bank on the amount to be refunded if the customer fails to exercise ordinary care to determine that the order was not authorized by the customer and to notify the bank of the relevant facts within a reasonable time not exceeding ninety days after the date the customer received notification from the bank that the order was accepted or that the customer's account was debited with respect to the order. The bank is not entitled to any recovery from the customer on account of a failure by the customer to give notification as stated in this section.

(b) Reasonable time under Subsection (a) of this section may be fixed by agreement as stated in Subsection (b) of Section 55-1-302 NMSA 1978, but the obligation of a receiving bank to refund payment as stated in Subsection (a) of this section may not otherwise be varied by agreement.

History: 1978 Comp., § 55-4A-204, enacted by Laws 1992, ch. 114, § 208; 2005, ch. 144, § 50.

OFFICIAL COMMENTS

UCC Official Comments by ALI & the NCCUSL. Reproduced with permission of the PEB for the UCC. All rights reserved.

1. With respect to unauthorized payment orders, in a very large percentage of cases a commercially reasonable security procedure will be in effect. Section 4A-204 [55-4A-204 NMSA 1978] applies only to cases in which (i) no commercially reasonable security procedure is in effect, (ii) the bank did not comply with a commercially reasonable security procedure that was in effect, (iii) the sender can prove, pursuant to Section 4A-203(a)(2) [55-4A-203 NMSA 1978], that the culprit did not obtain confidential security information controlled by the customer, or (iv) the bank, pursuant to Section 4A-203(a)(1) [55-4A-203 NMSA 1978] agreed to take all or part of the loss resulting from an unauthorized payment order. In each of these cases the bank takes the risk of loss with respect to an unauthorized payment order because the bank is not entitled to payment from the customer with respect to the order. The bank normally debits the customer's account or otherwise receives payment from the customer shortly after acceptance of the payment order. Subsection (a) of Section 4A-204 [55-4A-204 NMSA 1978] states that the bank must recredit the account or refund payment to the extent the bank is not entitled to enforce payment.

2. Like all of the provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code, Article 5 is supplemented by Section 1-103 [55-1-103 NMSA 1978] and, through it, by many rules of statutory and common law. Because this article is quite short and has no rules on many issues that will affect liability with respect to a letter of credit transaction, law beyond Article 5 will often determine rights and liabilities in letter of credit transactions. Even within letter of credit law, the article is far from comprehensive; it deals only with "certain" rights of the parties. Particularly with respect to the standards of performance that are set out in Section 5-108 [55-5-108 NMSA 1978], it is appropriate for the parties and the courts to turn to customs and practice such as the Uniform Customs and Practice for Documentary Credits, currently published by the International Chamber of Commerce as I.C.C. Pub. No. 500 (hereafter UCP). Many letters of credit specifically adopt the UCP as applicable to the particular transaction. Where the UCP are adopted but conflict with Article 5 and except where variation is prohibited, the UCP terms are permissible contractual modifications under Sections 1-302 and 5-103(c) [55-1-302 and [55-5-103(c) NMSA 1978]. See Section 5-116(c) [55-5-116(c) NMSA 1978]. Normally Article 5 should not be considered to conflict with practice except when a rule explicitly stated in the UCP or other practice is different from a rule explicitly stated in Article 5.

Section 4A-204 [55-4A-204 NMSA 1978] is designed to encourage a customer to promptly notify the receiving bank that it has accepted an unauthorized payment order. Since cases of unauthorized payment orders will almost always involve fraud, the bank's remedy is normally to recover from the beneficiary of the unauthorized order if the beneficiary was party to the fraud. This remedy may not be worth very much and it may not make any difference whether or not the bank promptly learns about the fraud. But in some cases prompt notification may make it easier for the bank to recover some part of its loss from the culprit. The customer will routinely be notified of the debit to its account with respect to an unauthorized order or will otherwise be notified of acceptance of the order. The customer has a duty to exercise ordinary care to determine that the order was unauthorized after it has received notification from the bank, and to advise the bank of the relevant facts within a reasonable time not exceeding 90 days after receipt of notification. Reasonable time is not defined and it may depend on the facts of the particular case. If a payment order for $1,000,000 is wholly unauthorized, the customer should normally discover it in far less than 90 days. If a $1,000,000 payment order was authorized but the name of the beneficiary was fraudulently changed, a much longer period may be necessary to discover the fraud. But in any event, if the customer delays more than 90 days the customer's duty has not been met. The only consequence of a failure of the customer to perform this duty is a loss of interest on the refund payable by the bank. A customer that acts promptly is entitled to interest from the time the customer's account was debited or the customer otherwise made payment. The rate of interest is stated in Section 4A-506 [55-4A-506 NMSA 1978]. If the customer fails to perform the duty, no interest is recoverable for any part of the period before the bank learns that it accepted an unauthorized order. But the bank is not entitled to any recovery from the customer based on negligence for failure to inform the bank. Loss of interest is in the nature of a penalty on the customer designed to provide an incentive for the customer to police its account. There is no intention to impose a duty on the customer that might result in shifting loss from the unauthorized order to the customer.

The 2005 amendment, effective January 1, 2006, changed the statutory reference in Subsection (b) from Section 55-1-204 (1) NMSA 1978 to Section 55-1-302(b) NMSA 1978.