The file a bank, an insurer or a first-time counterparty will ask for.

Mundoverde Trading L.L.C. is a limited liability company established on the Dubai mainland. It trades under its own name and on its own licence; there is no group structure standing behind the trading entity that a counterparty would need to look through.

A mainland licence permits the company to trade within the United Arab Emirates as well as to import and re-export, which is the reason for the structure. The licence states the activities the company may carry on; activities outside it are not undertaken.

The current licence is available on request in the onboarding pack, together with the memorandum of association and the register of shareholders.

Diligence runs in both directions. Mundoverde expects to be examined, and examines in turn: a counterparty that will not evidence who owns it does not become a counterparty, whatever the margin on the cargo.

The file is opened before the first transaction, not during it, and is reviewed on a stated cycle rather than when something goes wrong.

Oil and gas is the trade where sanctions exposure is most likely to arise and least likely to be accidental. Counterparties, their beneficial owners, the nominated vessel, the load and discharge terminals and the stated origin of the cargo are all screened before a transaction proceeds.

A positive match stops the transaction. It is not a matter for commercial judgement, and it is not resolved by an assurance from the party that produced the match.

A cargo is only as clean as the ship that lifts it and the barrels that went into it. Both are checked before a nomination is accepted, and a vessel that does not clear is refused rather than accepted with conditions.

Commodity trade is a recognised route for moving value, and the recognised methods are unsubtle: invoices that do not match the cargo, payment from a party that is not the buyer, and a voyage routed through a port with no commercial reason to be on it.

Mundoverde therefore invoices the contracting party, accepts payment only from that party, and declines third-party settlement. Where a transaction has a feature that cannot be explained commercially, it does not proceed on the strength of an explanation offered afterwards.

Quality is a compliance question as well as a commercial one. A parcel that meets the contract but not the destination's fuel regulations is a problem that arrives with the vessel, so both are resolved before an order is placed.

Who insures, on what basis and to what value follows from the Incoterm, which is why the Incoterm is written into the contract with its named port and not left to be inferred from custom. Where a route carries war or strikes exposure, that cover is arranged rather than assumed.

A cargo file is kept complete: contract, due diligence, screening results, vessel record, certificates of quality and quantity, transport document, payment instrument and presentation. The value of the file is that it can be produced years later without reconstruction.

Onboarding, credit and correspondent banking requests are answered from a standing pack, so the turnaround depends on the request rather than on assembling the documents.