Legal issue: Whether supplier may demand that the customer performs the contractual obligation to provide bank guarantee from a bank?

Ratio decidendi: The supplier may demand this. Lower courts were wrong in regarding this obligation (to provide a bank guarantee) as being impossible to perform, solely on the ground that the customer is unable to force the bank to issue such guarantee. However, the impossibility to perform an obligation оccurs only if the action which constitutes the substance of the obligation may not be carried out by whatever person or entity. Yet, the issuance of bank guarantees is a standard and regular bank service rendered by credit organisations with the purpose to derive profits.