Source: http://cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cisg/biblio/schlechtriem10.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-09 22:26:21
Document Index: 168805369

Matched Legal Cases: ['e contrario', '§ 271', '§ 459', '§ 494', '§ 460', '§ 434', '§ 271', 'art. 35', 'art. 34']

Go to Database Directory || Go to Bibliography Published in Galston & Smit ed., International Sales: The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods, Matthew Bender (1984), Ch. 6, pages 6-1 to 6-35. Reproduction authorized by Juris Publishing.
The Seller's Obligations Under the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods
[2] Obligations of the Seller and Beyond [3] Clean Title [4] Third-Party Infringement Claims
My lecture has as topic the obligations of the seller, and only
the obligations of the seller, excluding the remedies in case of
their breach. In order to make the seller's obligations clear,
however, it will be inevitable every now and then to infringe
upon Professor Ziegel's topic, namely, the field of remedies. I
am not doing this in order to readopt the ULIS concept of
providing for the buyer's remedies in close [page 6-1] connection
with the respective regulations of the seller's obligations [1] -- which was criticized with good reason -- but because the United Nations Convention, unfortunately, does not fully carry out its own intent to make a clear distinction: In Chapter 2, section II, articles 35 to 44, the seller's obligation to deliver
goods conforming to the contract is stated; yet articles 39, 43
and 44 deal with the buyer's remedies for non-conformity of the
goods, in particular, with examination, notification and the
consequences of failure to notify.
The substance of the seller's obligations is determined by
what the parties have agreed upon. The Convention may be
derogated from, a basic principle which is expressed in article
6 but is restated in a whole range of provisions on the seller's
obligations, such as article 30 ("as required by the conttact"),
article 32(1) ("in accordance with the contract") and article 35
("required by the contract"). The reiteration of the principle of
freedom of contract in some provisions involves the danger that
lawyers inexperienced in dealing with codification might draw
the conclusion e contrario: they might argue that other
provisions constitute cogent law because they do not contain an
explicit reservation for party autonomy. But I assume that this
concern is unfounded, and that the basic principle of party
autonomy can be made use of not only by individual
agreements, but also by using standardized contract forms or
referring to customary trade terms or designations from which
follow more detailed provisions. Examples are the incorporation
of Incoterms and similar national abbreviations, and also the
reference to one of several contract texts familiar to the parties
(for example, in the grain trade) by simply citing a certain call number, as is customary in some areas of international trade.
Of course, if the subject matter of a contract is described [page 6-2] in such summary formulas, the problem of divergent interpretations may arise. For this reason, the suggestion came up
during the Vienna Conference to lay down a set of uniform rules
of interpretation for the most important trade terms. This
problem, however, could not be solved by the Conference and,
in my opinion, it may be solved, just as any other interpretation
problem, via article 8.
The proposition that the parties are free to agree on
everything, and that the rules of the Convention are designated merely to fill gaps the parties may have left open, needs some qualification.
One limitation follows from the requirement that the object
of the sales contract be sufficiently definite or at least
determinable. A sales contract which does not fix or make
provision for determining the goods sold has, in my view, not
been validly concluded. This is not the result of any prohibition,
but it follows from the rules on contract formation, since a
proposal for concluding a contract which leaves the article of
purchase open is not sufficiently definite to constitute a valid
offer within the meaning of aticle 14(1). It is, therefore, not
necessary to have recourse to a domestic law which may
prohibit indefinite obligations in order to render such an
obligation invalid via article 4(a).
The reference to article 4, however, indicates an important
limit to party autonomy: Contracts which the national law
forbids are invalid if this is the consequence prescribed by that
law. If, for example, a national law declares a contract
concluded in violation of an export ban to be void, then party
autonomy is limited to that extent.[2] A similar result should
follow where a contract is subject to authorization by a
government agency and this authorization is denied.
Difficulties arise, however, where domestic laws not only
prohibit a certain provision but substitute a mandatory rule. [page 6-3] If, for example, a national law holds that the time and date of
delivery may not be left to the seller's discretion and that, in case an indeterminate delivery date has been agreed upon, the
seller is liable to deliver immediately, it is uncertain which rule
should govern. We can start with the assumption that the time
of delivery clause, according to the domestic law made
applicable by article 4(a), is invalid. But whether this affects the
entire contract will depend primarily on the national rule and its
reach, and secondarily on the intention of the parties. Assuming
that the contract is separable and the invalidity is limited to this
single clause, we still have to find out whether the seller is now,
according to the national rule, under an obligation to deliver
immediately, or whether article 33(c), according to which he has
to deliver within a reasonable time, controls. I think that the gap
which has been created by application of the national rule is to
be filled with provisions of the Convention. A domestic law
which does not restrict itself to declaring certain clauses void
but prescribes the content of international sale contracts would
violate the Convention. In case of doubt, I think we should start
out from the assumption that national laws are weaker and must
yield to the international norm. Moreover, a national legislature which would adopt
conflicting legislation would violate the obligations which its
government has incurred by signing the Convention.
The same principles must govern if national laws set out to
shape the seller's obligations in another respect, as when they
prescribe certain standards to be met by the goods from which the parties may not deviate in domestic commerce. If, for
example, sales contracts for medical drugs are subject under
national law to mandatory requirements as to the composition
of the drugs and the information carried on the packages or
enclosures, parties engaged in international commerce may
nevertheless agree otherwise by virtue of the Convention. Again,
if a national law prescribes that the packaging of certain luxuries
contain a warning of health [page 6-4] hazards, parties in international commerce have to be at liberty to agree on different packaging. It is quite another question, of
course, whether a country that has adopted such rules would
allow non-complying goods to be imported and distributed.
Even though, therefore, the seller's obligations can in principle
be freely determined by the parties, and the Convention is
applicable only so long as the parties have not come to an
agreement or their agreement is invalid, we still have to clarify
whether the rules on the seller's obligations have a function in
addition to the filling of gaps. Please allow me a brief account
of the German law to illustrate this problem. Over the past twenty years, our courts, like those of
other countries, have increasingly sought tools and standards to
control and to redress the imbalance arising from the use of
preformulated standard contracts. In 1976 our legislature
stepped in and passed the so-called Standard Terms Act which
basically merely codified the results the courts had reached
previously. The decisive problem for the courts, however, was
not to develop control devices but to find the proper standards
for control: Under what circumstances is a clause contained in
a standard form so unconscionable that it has to be deemed
invalid? To meet this problem, the German courts had ruled that
the result depends upon how far the contractual stipulation
deviates from the policy underlying the statutory regulation at issue.
Applying this formula, the statutory regulation thus becomes the
yardstick against which the stipulation is measured. Legal
writers have also recognized that standard terms in international
contracts must be judged by how far they depart from the statutory regulations of the Hague Uniform Sales Law (ULIS).[3] The same will apply to the United Nations Convention if it
comes into force in the Federal Republic. Let me explain this
with a concrete example: If the seller's standard terms provide
that the [page 6-5] buyer must give notice of any lack of conformity on the very
same day he receives the goods lest he lose all remedies, then such a stipulation would depart so far from the policy of articles 39 and 44 that a German court would presumably
declare this contract clause invalid under section 9(2) no. 1 of
the Standard Terms Act, provided German law is subsidiarily
The Court of Appeal of Hamm recently had to decide the
following case: An Italian seller had sold textiles for the
manufacture of trousers to a German buyer. The seller's
Conditions of Sale stated that all remedies were excluded after
processing of the delivered goods. After delivery, the buyer
examined the goods without discovering any defects, but when
the finished trousers were ironed it turned out that the material was unfit. As a bar to the buyer's damage claim, the
seller asserted his exemption clause. The Court rejected this defense, referring to articles 79 and 80 ULIS (which
basically correspond to articles 82 and 83 of the Convention)
and ruled that the clause violated basic principles of ULIS and
was therefore ineffective.[3a]
Thus, the Convention is not just a gap-filler. It may under
certain circumstances also be a yardstick for the validity of
clauses that the parties have not really agreed upon but that one
has imposed upon the other through the use of standard terms
One last function of the statutory regulation of the seller's
obligations must be mentioned in this context: It also determines
the scope of the Convention. If the parties deviate so far from
the legal model of the seller's obligations that the typical
characteristics of a sales contract are no longer present -- where,
for instance, the contract is a lease -- the Convention does not apply and domestic law governs. [page 6-6]
"The seller must deliver the goods, hand over any documents
relating to them and transfer the property in the goods, as
required by the contract and this Convention."
This sounds very much like the corresponding article 18 ULIS.
But the two formulations -- "the seller must deliver the goods"
(article 30 CISG) and "the seller shall effect delivery of the
goods" (article 18 ULIS) -- are, so to speak, codificatory worlds
apart. As is well known, ULIS attempted to encode in the one
concept of délivrance a whole range of issues, such as
performance and risk of loss, due date for payment of the
purchase price (article 71 ULIS) and limitation of the seller's
obligations to goods identified to the contract in case of a sale
of unascertained goods. Although the questions of when the
contract has been performed and when the risk has passed often
require parallel answers, Ernst Rabel's idea -- which he worked
out under the influence of Scandinavian models -- of solving these
problems by the all-encompassing notion of délivrance was an
argument for criticizing ULIS. UNCITRAL, therefore,
abandoned this highly abstract and ill-defined concept (article 19
ULIS) at an early stage,[4] and the Convention understands
"delivery" in a purely descriptive sense; the legal meaning of the term is illustrated in the following provisions.
Article 30 not only obliges the seller to deliver, but also to hand
over all documents relating to the goods and to transfer the property
in them. How exactly this obligation to transfer the property is to be
met lies beyond the scope of the Convention and is thus governed by
domestic law. Domestic law, therefore, determines whether the
property passes when the contract is concluded, which documents may
be [page 6-7] necessary for the transfer of property, and so on. For certain
provisions, there may arise quite complicated combinations of
domestic law and obligations founded on the Convention: If the
seller promises to transfer the property only after full payment
of the purchase price, then this is primarily an admissible
modification of his obligation under the Convention to transfer
the property. The questions, however, whether the seller can
retain title at all despite delivery of the goods, and whether title
passes automatically with payment of the balance of the
purchase price or whether another transfer act will be necessary,
are subject to the regulations of domestic law. Particularly
complicated may be those cases in which a reservation of title
is stipulated in favor of the seller, not only to secure the balance
of the purchase price, but also to secure other claims of the
seller which are not subject to the Convention. Where there is
such an agreement, it is doubtful whether and to what extent the
seller's obligation to transfer the property is still governed by the
Convention in the first place: An obligation to transfer the
property against payment of all debts the buyer may still have -- such as those stemming from contracts of manufacture not subject to the Convention or from sales
contracts dealing with the kind of goods mentioned in article 2 -- may constitute a security arrangement that bears little relation to
a typical sale. It is quite conceivable that such a contract
exceeds the boundary to financing agreements. If the seller, after
the time within which the buyer has to make regular instalment
payments has elapsed is not bound to transfer the property
automatically but only upon the "buyer's" request, it is
questionable whether the arrangement is an instalment sale at all,
or whether it is really a lease not subject to the Convention.
It is not my topic here to analyze the scope of the Convention. As mentioned above, however, I wanted to
show that far-reaching modifications of the seller's basic
obligations to deliver and to transfer the property may bring [page 6-8] up the question whether we are still dealing with a sales contract
within the scope of the Convention.
The obligation of the seller to deliver can be broken down to
the following aspects: where, when and how.
As for the place of delivery, the Convention distinguishes
between four possibilities and itself provides for three of these:
It distinguishes between a contract involving carriage (article
31(a)) and one where the seller has to place the goods at the
buyer's disposal at a certain place (article 31(b)). If the parties
have elected neither alternative, the goods must be placed at the
buyer's disposal at the seller's place of business. Beyond that,
the first clause of article 31 provides for the possibility that the
seller is bound to deliver "at any other particular place," in other
words, at a place contractually agreed upon, which will be the
case quite frequently.
In a number of instances, an agreement is entered into to the
effect that the seller is bound to deliver at the buyer's place of
business, a provision that may be stipulated by the Incoterm
"delivery duty paid (place of buyer's business)."[5] On the other
hand, the place of business of the buyer's customer, to whom
the buyer has already resold the goods, may be designated. In
both cases the seller's obligation involves transporting the
goods. If the goods are damaged in transit, the seller has
breached the contract, which can trigger the remedies of articles
45 and following. In case of loss or damage in transit, the seller
can ward off damage claims only if he can rely on article 79(1)
where the carriage is performed by his own people, or on article
79(2) where he avails himself of an independent carrier. In such
cases, the risk passes according to article 69. The contractual
stipulation [page 6-9] of a delivery to the buyer's or his customer's place of business
may have appeared to be so unusual to the drafters of the
Convention -- who may primarily have considered overseas
transactions -- that this "obligation to transport the goods to the
buyer's place" has not been specifically provided for. Those
are used to seeing trucks which haul goods from the
manufacturer or wholesaler to the buyer and which the seller
runs and operates specifically for this purpose.
The situation where the contract calls for the buyer to come
for the goods, as contemplated in article 31(b), would seem
much less frequent in international trade. On the one hand, this
happens where the buyer, in the absence of alternative
provisions in the contract, is bound to pick up specific goods
such as a machine or a car at the place where the parties knew
these were located at the time the contract was made. On the other hand, it may concern goods not yet
identified or goods to be manufactured or produced which, in
case of doubt, are to be placed at the buyer's disposal at the
place where they are to be drawn from a stock or to be
manufactured or produced; examples might be a certain quantity
of rocks from a quarry, a certain quantity of wine from the next
crop in a certain vineyard, and the like. In these cases, the
assumption of a corresponding intention to be inferred from the
parties' knowledge of the warehouse or place of manufacture
(absent any different contractual provisions) is decisive for the
buyer's obligation to come for the goods and for the location of the place to which the buyer is to come.[6]
The seller has complied with his obligations in these cases
when he places the goods at the buyer's disposal. While the
seller has thus performed once he has "placed at buyer's
disposal" and is no longer under an obligation to deliver, under
article 69(1) the risk may pass at some later time. A [page 6-10] similar situation may arise when the seller has "placed at buyer's
disposal" at a place other than his place of business, and the
buyer does not yet know that the goods are ready to be picked
up (article 69(2)). In these cases the seller's obligation is, in my
view, terminated by performance; if the goods are destroyed,
the seller does not have to deliver, nor can he claim the
purchase price. If, after performance, the goods are destroyed
other than accidentally, the seller may be liable for damages
because of a violation of his duty under article 85 to preserve
the goods as is reasonable in the circumstances.
Article 31(b) also applies to stored goods and goods at sea.
In these cases, "to place at the disposal of the buyer" means that
he may dispose by instructing the buyer and/or by handing over
the corresponding documents. Also, in this instance performance of the obligation to deliver may occur at a time other than the passing of the risk.
Article 31(c) contains an escape provision according to
which the seller, in case of doubt, has to place at buyer's
disposal at his own place of business.
The most important case in international trade, however, is
the so-called sale involving carriage in which the seller is only
under an obligation to organize transportation by carrier(s) and
to hand the goods over to the first carrier for transmission to
the buyer (article 31(a)). According to article 67(1), as soon as
the seller has handed the goods over to the first carrier he has
not only fulfilled his obligation to deliver but he has also shifted
the risk of loss to the buyer. But according to article 32(2), the
seller must not only hand over to the first carrier but also
arrange for the shipment; in other words, he must conclude the
contracts necessary for transportation appropriate in the
circumstances and according to the usual terms for such
transportation. Whether he is also under a duty to provide for
adequate insurance depends on the sales contract; for this
question also, the use of Incoterms will in many cases furnish
detailed provisions. In any event, the seller must, at the buyer's
request, provide [page 6-11] him with all available information necessary to effect insurance, if the
seller is not bound to provide for insurance himself (article 32(3)). If
the goods sold, when handed over to the carrier, are not yet clearly
identified to the contract by shipping documents, appropriate stamps
or markings on the goods or on their packaging or otherwise, the
seller must make this identification by sending the buyer notice of the
consignment specifying the goods (article 32(1)). A violation of this
obligation to specify primarily prevents the risk from passing to the
buyer (article 67(2)); beyond that, it can also trigger all remedies for
breach of contract.[7]
To be sure, delivery in the described manner amounts to
performance of the contractual obligation only if goods which
conform to the contract have been placed at the buyer's
disposal or handed over to the first carrier. Article 19(1) ULIS
expressly included this in the definition of "délivrance." If the
seller hands over goods which do not correspond to the
description required by the contract, there may have been delivery within the meaning of articles 31 and following, but at the same time there is a breach of contract that
may trigger the buyer's remedies laid down in articles 45 and
following. In my opinion, there is delivery even when goods
entirely different from the ones ordered have been handed over,
as when, because of a reading mistake, chloral aluminum instead
of aluminum chlorate is delivered, or -- to take a case decided
recently by the House of Lords -- worthless autumn cabbage seed
instead of the winter cabbage seed actually ordered is furnished.[8] The view of the UNCITRAL Secretariat's Commentary that where [page 6-12] something entirely different has been delivered there is no
delivery within the meaning of articles 30 and following seems
to me to be mistaken and even dangerous. The danger lies in the
risk of transferring to the Convention a most unfortunate
controversy from German legal science and practice, namely,
the question whether "merely defective" goods (a "peius") have
been delivered, or whether there is no delivery at all because an "aliud" has been handed over. At
first sight, the problem appears to be purely academic since
both cases constitute a breach of contract, and the remedies of
articles 45 and following make no distinction between the
delivery of merely non-conforming goods and the "delivery" of
an aliud which really is no delivery at all. But the distinction
would immediately gain practical relevance if the buyer,
according to article 39, lost his rights because he failed to give
timely notice of the non-conformity. If one were to argue that the
remedies of article 45 and their loss by failure to give notice
presuppose delivery in the narrower sense of placing at the
buyer's disposal or handing over goods that are not entirely an
aliud then, as in German law, the problem of distinguishing
between aliud and mere defect would also burden the
Convention. A buyer who has failed to give timely notice could
maintain that steel beams not conforming to the contractual
description, or winter wheat delivered instead of summer wheat, could not be regarded as deliveries and therefore
a prerequisite for his obligation to give notice of the lack of
conformity was missing. This situation should be avoided by
assuming delivery whenever the goods handed over to the buyer
or carrier have been selected for the purpose of performing the
sales contract in question.
In most if not necessarily all cases, a sales contract subject to
the Convention will require transportation of the goods across
one or several borders. Consequently, the problem arises
whether it is part of the seller's duties to obtain the requisite
export and import licenses, to pay or effect payment of any export or import taxes, and the like. The [page 6-13] Convention does not address these issues itself. They will
usually have been considered by the parties and the respective
obligations will have been fixed by the terms of the contract.
The use of Incoterms may help to settle these questions.[9]
Where the parties have not come to an agreement, article 9 may
step in because the parties have referred to a usage, or because
they have in the past established practices as between
themselves that remove any doubts. By way of exception, an
international trade usage as considered in article 9(2) may clarify
who has to bear those expenditures. As a last possibility, the
parties may resort to interpretation of the contract according to
article 8; applying article 8(3), the determination of the place for
delivery may give important information about the parties' intent
as to who shall be burdened with the public law duties
mentioned above. If, for example, they have agreed on an
obligation to be discharged only at the buyer's place of business
so that the seller is bound to deliver the goods to that place at
his own risk and expense, their intent will normally have been that the seller should provide for licenses and pay all taxes. In
the case of a sale involving carriage where the seller, under
article 31(a), is obliged to arrange for transportation and to hand
over to the first carrier, it would seem that he is bound to
comply with any export duties arising at the border or at least
to have the carriers comply with them.[10] It would seem that this interpretation is supported by the thought underlying
articles 35, 41 and 42, namely, that the seller must provide for
goods that can be used according to the contractual purposes,
which means that their use is hampered neither by non-conformity nor by rights or claims of third
parties. To draw an analogy to these provisions, as [page 6-14] does Honnold,[11] seems to be dangerous, however, because the seller
could then assert that the buyer was aware of this handicap (compare
articles 35(3) and 43(2)).
The obligations of the parties with respect to taxes and
authorizations might be difficult to ascertain, by way of construction,
in a case where the seller is bound only to place the goods at the
buyer's disposal at his own place of business or another particular
place and the buyer thus has to come for the goods. For these cases,
it will be impossible to set up a general rule according to which the
seller would have to make sure that the goods are fit for export, expecially in view of the fact that the buyer does not always intend to take the goods
across a border. Starting out from the assumption that the seller has
completed his principal obligation by placing the goods at buyer's
disposal, I would like to presume that, in case of doubt, it is up to the
buyer to obtain export authorizations or to pay import taxes and the
If the seller does not live up to his obligation to deliver at a certain
place, he may have breached the contract. Whether there really is a
breach, however, depends on yet another factor: time. Therefore,
Honnold is right in saying: "In most cases, questions as to 'place' and
'time' will merge into a single issue: Did the goods get to the agreed
place on time?"[12] Article 30 ULIS, therefore, takes into account that
goods first delivered to a wrong place can still be brought to the
agreed placed on time, that is, before the delay in delivery can amount to a fundamental breach of contract.[13] Under the Convention, insofar as the seller is willing and able to deliver at the right place within a reasonable time, [page 6-15] the interpretation of the term "fundamental breach of contract" in article 25 should lead to the same solution as article 30 ULIS.
Clause (a) of article 33 first reiterates the self-evident statement
that the relevant time for delivery is primarily the date fixed by or
determinable from the contract.[14] The rule of paragraph (b) is
similarly unambiguous: If a certain period of time is fixed, the seller
is basically at liberty to choose at which date within this time span he
wants to deliver, unless the buyer is to choose a date. Finally, the
auxiliary rule of paragraph (c) corresponds to the respective rules of numerous domestic laws, such as UCC 2-309(1). Even where
it is established, as in German law, that in case of doubt the buyer may demand immediate performance (BGB
§ 271(1)), the hardship of such a provision is softened somewhat by
the requirement of good faith according to which the special
circumstances of the particular case have to be taken into account.[15]
The circumstances which play a part in construing the term
"reasonable time" are determined, of course, by such factors as
how much time the arrangement of transportation requires;
whether the seller, as the buyer must have known, has to
procure or manufacture the goods himself; and so forth.
Documents play an important role in the sale of goods. If [page 6-16] I may choose a simplistic classification, we have, on the one hand, documents which represent the goods and which are frequently, for the parties, the real object of the sale; they are dealing in documents, not in goods.[16] On the other hand, there are documents which are of no importance as far as the power of disposition over the goods (such as bills of lading or warehouse receipts) and over their value (an insurance policy, for instance) is concerned, but which are relevant to their usefulness (certificates of origin, test certificates, handling instructions and the like). In view of the diversity of procedures involving such documents -- direct handing-over, consignment, delivery by the carrier, deposit with a bank and so on -- the drafters of the Convention had to confine themselves to pronouncing the self-evident rule that the seller is bound to deliver the documents at the time and place in the form required by the contract. Obligations in
regard to documents are normally to be found in Incoterms. In many cases appropriate regulations will be contained in commercial usages to which the parties have referred or which are deemed to have impliedly been incorporated as international usages (article 9).
Sentences 2 and 3 added to article 34 at the Vienna Conference of 1980 allow a seller who has handed over documents before the delivery date to cure any lack of conformity in the documents, provided this does not cause the buyer unreasonable inconvenience or expense. This right [page 6-17] of the seller is basically the same as the one stated in article 48,
namely, that he may remedy at his own expense any failure to perform
his obligations if he can do so without unreasonable delay or
inconvenience for the buyer. Article 34 (sentence 2) deals with cases
where the documents do not comform to certain legal requirements
or the terms of the contract with respect to their contents. As an
example, the commentaries to the Incoterms, like the CIF clause,
define a "clean bill of lading" by stating which clauses may not be
contained in a bill of lading and which clauses are harmless.[17] Such
"defects" can be cured according to article 34 (sentences 2 and
3) in the case of delivery before the delivery date, and according to
article 48 probably even after that date has passed. [page 6-18]
The buyer has purchased the goods for some purpose. He wants to
consume, use or resell them. His expectations with respect to the
goods can be frustrated if the goods do not possess the features necessary for the use intended by the buyer, or if a third party claims a right to possession or
prohibits their use by virtue of a patent or other industrial or
intellectual property right. In all these cases, the question arises
whether and to what extent the seller has to take responsibility
for the intended and uninhibited use. Continental legal systems,
drawing on their Roman heritage, distinguish strictly between
defects in quality and the seller's obligation to procure good
title. I think I can, therefore, take this classification as a basis for
When Ernst Rabel, in the course of preparing the first drafts for
a uniform sales law, compiled and analyzed the legal rules regulating
the seller's obligation with respect to the quality of the goods sold, he
came to the conclusion that, while these are practical questions of
everyday commerce, to the lawyer they are full of unsolved
difficulties. The "irregularities and lack of clarity" were essentially
caused by the irrational survival of a doctrine rooted in antiquity.[18] Subsequently, Rabel uncovered the roots that are at the basis of the
development of the seller's responsibility for the quality of goods in
the most influential legal systems, the Roman, Anglo-American and
German laws. He also exposed the common core of all legal systems:
that the seller shall assume responsibility that the goods sold conform
to the contractual agreement. The seller's obligation and liability,
therefore, are not derived from any special warranty nor is he always
liable for certain objective characteristics of the goods sold. This
opinion of Rabel subsequently shaped the [page 6-19] further development of German law, even though it is again under
attack.[19] It lay also at the basis of the first drafts of the later
Hague uniform law (ULIS). Nothing describes this basic principle
better than the statement by Lord Justice Brett in 1877: "The
governing principle ... is that the thing offered or delivered under a
contract of purchase and sale must answer the description of it which
is contained in words in the contract, or which would be so contained
if the contract were accurately drawn out."[20] This is the starting
point stated in article 35(1), supplemented by the obvious obligations
to deliver the quantity, quality and description required by the contract
and to contain or package the goods in the manner required by the
In many cases, however, the quality and description required by the
contract are not expressly fixed by the parties, so that an interpretation
of the contract becomes necessary in order to find out the exact
definition of the seller's obligations. For these details of the seller's
obligations to be obtained via interpretation, the purposes for which the buyer wants to use the goods have overriding significance.
If a car is sold, the seller's obligations with respect to its qualities will
depend on whether it is to be employed as a road vehicle, used as scrap metal, or exhibited in the
Museum of Modern Art. Consequently article 35(2) uses this purpose
as the basis for construction. Where the parties have not agreed on
certain specific qualities, the goods must primarily be fit for the
purposes for which goods of the same description would ordinarly be
used (subparagraph (a)). A buyer who orders sand of a certain grain
size can normally expect only the qualities requisite for sand as a
building material, but not the purity requisite for the [page 6-20] purpose, unknown to the seller, of using it in children's sandboxes.
It has to be added, however, that "ordinary use" will be
defined by the standards of the country or region in which the
buyer intends to use the goods. In Europe, gasoline for the
operation of cars is still understood as leaded gasoline, whereas
the expectations of an American buyer who stocks up on gas
on the Rotterdam spot market might be directed toward
unleaded gasoline. In order to avoid uncertainty it would be
advisable in such cases for a buyer to name not only his
purpose but also the place where he intends to use the goods
"Ordinary use" must be distinguished from the "particular
purpose" which is decisive for the qualities of the goods where
the buyer has made it expressly or impliedly known to the seller
at the time of conclusion of the contract (subparagraph (b)).
Thus, if the German buyer has ordered building equipment
which is not to be operated in Germany under normal climatic
conditions in Middle Europe but is destined for use on an
Antarctic expedition or on a pipeline-laying job in Siberia in
winter, it has to have those special qualities that make it fit for
operation in severe cold, on frozen soil or ice. But the buyer
cannot content himself with informing the seller of the particular
purpose if he did not rely on the special skills and judgment of
the seller, or if it would be unreasonable for him to trust that the
seller knows and is able to supply the qualities necessary for
this particular purpose. Thus, if in our example the German
buyer purchases the tractors from an Alsatian agricultural
supplier trading in used tractors, the mere indication of the
intended use would probably not be enough to obligate the
seller to modify the tractors accordingly. If, in such a case, the
buyer wants to make sure, he should not rely on interpretation
of the contract on the basis of the indicated purpose, but should
insist on an unambiguous stipulation that the machinery
purchased is fit for operation under arctic conditions. In other
words, when buying from experts the buyer may [page 6-21] assume that the qualities requisite for the particular purpose are
impliedly warranted, whereas the seller upon whose skill and
judgment the buyer did not or could not rely is responsible for
such particular qualities only in case of an express warranty.
One may fairly ask, of course, whether supplementation of the
contract through article 35(2)(a) and (b) would not follow from
the application of the general interpretative rule of article 8, in
particular paragraphs (2) and (3);[21] but, in view of the fact that
the Convention addresses laymen, the express rule of article
35(2) makes sense even if it merely reiterates the result already
reached by applying the general provisions.
For a German lawyer, the provisions of article 35 CISG must
appear to be superior to the Civil Code (BGB). The
sophisticated differentiation between specific and generic goods
is absent and, above all, there need not be a distinction as to
whether non-conformity means only effects in the goods or
whether, in the case of particularly gross deviations from the
contractual description, there is an aliud. Of course, the
principal relevance of all this lies in the field of remedies.
Unfortunately, the Vienna Conference rejected an Australian
proposal to the effect that minor differences in quality or quantity should, as in article 33 ULIS, be regarded as
immaterial. Maybe it was feared that such a provision could be
a temptation for national tribunals to excuse quality defects too
generously. On the other hand, the corresponding provision of
the German Civil Code (§ 459(1) cl. 2) has raised no problems
Article 35(2)(c) states a rule that can be found in a number
of domestic laws in a similar form. Section 2-313(1)(c) UCC
and section 15 of the English Sale of Goods Act (1893) both
consider the qualities of a sample or model to be contractually
promised, just as § 494 BGB does. Here [page 6-22] too, the contractual promise would follow from interpretation
according to article 8 of the Convention.
The obligation under article 35(2)(d) to package in the manner
usual for such goods or, where there is no such usual manner, in a
manner adequate to preserve and protect the goods, surely helps to
reduce uncertainty. German law still takes trouble to construe a so-called secondary contractual obligation distinguishing it from the
rules governing the quality of the goods themselves.[22]
According to article 35(3), the seller is not liable if the buyer knew
of the lack of conformity or could not have been unaware of it.
Honnold rightly points out that the case that will normally fall within
paragraph (3) is the sale of specific goods which do not possess
"ordinary" qualities within the meaning of article 35(2)(a). In German
law, the corresponding provision of § 460 BGB is sometimes
understood as meaning that a purchase with knowledge of the non-conformity amounts to an implied waiver of remedies.[23] For the
Convention, the idea suggests itself that the presumption of
corresponding promises in article 35(2)(a-d) cannot hold where
the parties knew the condition of the goods and the buyer thus
could not expect the seller to impliedly warrant the ordinary or
particular qualities requisite for the contractual purpose. A
problem that paragraph (3) poses is that it refers only to
paragraph (2). What if certain qualities have expressly been
agreed upon in the contract, and yet the buyer knows or could
not have been unaware that they are missing? If a buyer is
purchasing a machine to produce wires which, according to the
contractual description, can draw wires of up to 2 mm gauge,
but the machine in reality can only manufacture wires of up to 1
mm, and if on the basis of an inspection and the type plate the
buyer knew or could not overlook this fact, it is an open
question whether he can still [page 6-23] hold the seller liable. It would seem that in such a case only a
corrective interpretation according to article 8(3), by which the
contractual description loses its character as an obligation, can
The possibility that an interpretation of the contract can,
under certain circumstances, reduce or exclude any of the
seller's obligations under article 35 brings up the next question,
namely, whether and to what extent the seller can exclude or
limit his obligations and his liability by warranty disclaimers. The
freedom of contract as laid down in article 6 supports such
disclaimer clauses; the same is true for the formulation in article
35(2) according to which the implied provisions of that
paragraph do not apply "where the parties have agreed
otherwise." But domestic laws can prohibit such disclaimer
clauses and lead via article 4(a) to their invalidity. As mentioned
above, one also has to take into account domestic rules that
employ the underlying policy of the statutory provisions from
which the parties want to deviate, as a yardstick for the
admissibility of contractual provisions. If, for instance, the seller
in his printed standard terms attempts to exclude any obligation
with respect to the fitness of the goods, German law would
declare such a provision void for the simple reason that it
negates the principal obligations of the seller under the law.[24]
According to article 36(1), the conforming qualities of the
goods must exist at the time when the risk passes to the buyer.
If they are absent at that time -- which is regulated in articles 66 to
70 and which is the topic of Professor Honnold's report -- the
seller is liable regardless of when the lack of conformity
becomes apparent. Conversely, the seller is not liable if the
deficiencies come into existence only after that tinie. This
provision, which is analogous to the rules in a range of
Continental legal systems,[25] couples obligation and [page 6-24] liability on the part of the seller with the passing to the buyer of the risk to pay even though he does not obtain the goods, or
goods in the promised condition. Thus, if a machine sold by a German manufacturer to an American buyer FOB Hamburg is damaged by water during shipment, the seller is free
from responsibility for the damage because he fully performed
his obligations and all risks passed to the buyer when the
machine passed the ship's rail in Hamburg harbor; the buyer, on
the other hand, has lost his remedies and must pay the full price
(article 66). To those scholars interested in the dogmatic basic
structures of a law of sales, this (adequate) regulation shows
that the buyer's remedies and the risk-of-loss rules are (and
should be) in the final analysis based on the same principles of
In Germany and, in particular, in consumer-report magazines,
it is sometimes rather maliciously observed that modern mass-produced products are designed to remain useful just so long as
the contractual or statutory term of warranty is in force, and no
longer. How long goods have to last and remain useful,
however, is a tricky issue that cannot be solved in an
international convention. In Vienna, this question was debated
most controversially because some developing countries
demanded that a "reasonable period, as the case may be" be
fixed for the implied warranties of fitness for use.[26] The
wording finally found in the Convention's text, to be sure, is not
free from doubt; it does not say unambiguously whether the
substitution of "a period of time" in article 36(2) for "a specific
period'" in the UNCITRAL draft means that the period of
usefulness shall be determined by the court called upon to
decide the particular case -- having due regard, of course, to all
the circumstances -- or whether this period must be fixed by the terms of the contract for whose interpretation article 8 may be applied. The
prevailing view of the Conference, however, was that "a [page 6-25] period of time" should stand for a period determined by the contract,
and not just determinable by local courts.[27] If I am right, the dispute was about a fictitious problem or, at best, a problem of burden of proof. If, after the risk has passed, defects appear due to external impact, no one will hold the seller responsible on the ground that the goods delivered have lost one or another of the promised qualities by
this misfortune. It is, of course, possible that the seller may give a
special guarantee to the effect that he will fix defects caused by
external impact -- the buyer's conduct or impact by third parties or
forces of nature -- even after the risk has passed, but such guarantees are rare. On the other hand, where defects or mere non-conformity follow from simple use or weather conditions after the passage of risk and these can be
attributed to inherent characteristics of the goods present at the time
when the risk passed, we may have an ordinary breach of the seller's
obligation to deliver conforming goods. For the terms of the contract
or, secondarily, the Convention's provisions on ordinary purposes
(article 35(2)(a)) and particular purposes made known to the seller
(article 33(2)(b)) also determine for how long the goods shall remain
useful and what qualities they have to have at the time the risk passes in order to last that long. Therefore, the rule
of article 36(2) according to which the "seller is also liable for any
lack of conformity which occurs after the time indicated in the
preceding paragraph and which is due to a breach of any of his
obligations, including a breach of any guarantee that for a period of
time the goods will remain fit" ordinarily involves nothing but
relaxation of the buyer's burden of proof. If defects appear during the
ordinary time of use or during an expressly stipulated period of time,
the seller can ward off liability only if he can prove that they were caused by an external impact and that they did not originate in the condition of the goods.[28] The real problem, [page 6-26] of course, is to know what normal lifespan under normal
conditions of use has to be, depending upon the ordinary or
particular purpose for which the goods are to be fit according
to the contract, and what features and qualities they must have,
therefore, in order to last and to function that long. But this
defies regulation in a sales convention.
The seller's obligations correspond to the rights of the buyer. A
violation by the seller of his obligations and thus of the rights of the
buyer triggers the buyer's remedies. In the historical development of
the law, to be sure, the remedies always came first, whether as writs
or as actiones. Therefore, rights and obligations of the parties were
at first nothing but reflections of remedies, before lawyers assigned
them a significance of their own. That, in turn, allows me to reiterate
that the obligations of the seller have to remain abstract without the remedies of the buyer; in any event, their presentation cannot be concluded without looking at what
happens in the case of a breach of the seller's obligations with
respect to the conformity of the goods. This touches upon three
different frontiers.
If the goods do not correspond to the contractual description, the
buyer can according to article 46(2) require delivery of substitute
goods where the lack of conformity constitutes a fundamental breach
of contract, or he can require the seller to remedy the lack of
confonnity by repair, unless this is unreasonable (article 46 (3)). This
is clearly a remedy from which results the corresponding obligation
of the seller to deliver substitute goods or to repair, upon the buyer's
request. However, not only is the seller obliged to cure if the buyer
demands this as a remedy, but he is also entitled to do so. Two
situations have to be distinguished: If [page 6-27] the seller has delivered before the date of delivery, article 37
expressly grants him this right to cure, provided the exercise of
this right does not cause the buyer unreasonable inconvenience
or unreasonable expense. In legal literature, this right to cure is
seen as a possibility for the seller to avert avoidance of the
contract by the buyer by reason of a fundamental breach due to
the non-conformity. The provision is actually unnecessary because, up to the date of delivery, a fundamental breach can only occur in the form of an anticipatory breach within the meaning of article 72(1). In order to
prevent avoidance before the delivery date, therefore, all that is
needed is a notification and the possibility for the seller to cure until
the date for delivery has passed. It seems that the importance of
article 37 is that it expressly lays down limits -- obvious in themselves -- to the right to cure, on the one hand, and a liability for damages in
sentence 2, on the other hand. Of course, the damages addressed in
sentence 2 comprise only the buyer's expenses in making repairs, in
returning the non-conforming goods, and so on, but not the damages
originating in the non-conformity itself. Before the date for delivery
has passed, the seller has not yet breached the contract, so that any
losses, as by a resale at a lower price, can result in damage claims
only where the terms of article 72(1) are met. Likewise, articles 45
and following and 74 to 77, but not article 37 (sentence 2), apply
where the substitute goods offered by way of cure have deficiencies
which cause further damage.[29]
The seller can cure even after the date for delivery (article
48(1)). As in the case discussed above, this article (sentence 1)
provides for a buyer's damage claims, but these perform a
function which differs from those reserved in article 37
(sentence 2). Now we are dealing with damages which may
really originate in the defect because the fact that the goods were non-conforming at the date of delivery in itself constitutes a breach of the contract. Thus, if an operating loss [page 6-28] arises from defects of the machine delivered which defects are
later cured by repair, this loss can be recovered under article
45(1)(b) in connection with articles 74 to 77; article
48(1)(sentence 2) only confirms this result.
It is unclear whether the right to cure "subsequently" can be
cut off by an avoidance by the buyer -- as is suggested by the
words "subject to article 49" in article 48 -- or whether the offer
and capacity of the seller to proceed with a subsequent cure
always preclude a fundamental breach and thus the prerequisite
for avoidance. In my view, however, the question has to be
answered in the affirmative.[30]
If the terms of the contract and their interpretation are
decisive for the obligations of the seller, the question comes up
whether and to what extent "mistakes" of the parties call for the
application of the respective remedies of domestic law. Similar
issues arise when there has been a "misrepresentation" in
connection with a description of the quality of the goods. The
questions -- familiar from German law -- of the conflict between the
remedies for mistake and those for non-conformity may also
be asked in connection with the Convention. In its context,
admittedly, we encounter much more serious complications
resulting from the diversity of domestic rules regarding mistake
and misrepresentation. In my view, there are two levels to be
distinguished. In cases of fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation,
national remedies remain in full force because they are basically
sanctions for tortious behavior which clearly is not a matter of sales law.
ULIS had such a provision in article 89: "In case of fraud,
damages shall be determined by the rules applicable in respect
of contracts of sale not governed by the present Law."[31] But where it is not a matter of tortious conduct, the domestic
remedies for mistakes in communication or motivation should
be disregarded.[32] This obviously must be true [page 6-29] for mistakes concerning the goods and their qualities because only
with respect to this setting does the Convention supply an express,
unified regulation. As to the financial situation of the parties and their
respective capacities to perform it is rather doubtful whether article
71(1) contains an exclusive uniform regulation or not, leaving room
for domestic rules of avoidance and the like.[33]
Among the remedies of the buyer and the preconditions for their
exercise should be included the provision that the buyer must examine
the goods (article 38) and give notice to the seller of any non-conformity (article 39). But, in connection with this obligation, the
Convention sets up another collateral obligation, namely, that the
seller is not entitled to rely on a failure to examine and notify if he
did not disclose to the buyer any facts which are relevant to the lack
of conformity and of which he knew or could not have been unaware
(article 40); in other words, the seller is under an obligation to give
notice to the buyer of any non-conformity he was or could have been
aware of. This applies to cases where, after the contract has been
concluded, a deterioration of the goods occurs, which fact has
become known to the seller or could not escape his notice. If,
however, the non-conformity is already present at the time the
contract is made, domestic rules governing fraud will generally be
applicable.[34]
The seller is not only bound to transfer the property (article 30),
but he must deliver goods which are free from any right or claim of
a third party, unless the buyer has agreed to take the goods subject to
such a right or claim (article 41) (sentence 1)). This corresponds
with the seller's obligation under UCC section 2-312(1), section 12
of the English Sale of Goods Act, §§ 434 and 439(1) of the German [page 6-30] Civil Code, and articles 192 to 196 of the Swiss Code of Obligations.
Thus, the seller is under an obligation and is liable when he has sold
goods belonging to another; the clarifying provision of article 53
ULIS, which was meant to prevent domestic laws (for example, French
law) from giving effect to their invalidating rules in such a case, has
been deleted as self-evident.[35] In its practical application, the provision may cause difficulties in two respects:
The seller can deliver goods which do not have to be free from third-party rights if and only if the buyer has agreed to take them
thus encumbered. In order to exclude liability, therefore, it is not
enough for the buyer to be aware of such rights -- as is the case with
non-conformity (article 35(3)). On the other hand, an agreement
can also be implied.[36] but the buyer's knowledge that a
warehousemen or carrier has a lien on the goods is not always
sufficient to constitute agreement. Nevertheless, it would appear that
the buyer's consent must be assumed when the seller informs him that
he not only retains title until full payment of the purchase price, but
that he has assigned title to his own bank as security and that the buyer must pay the balance of the price directly to the bank.
Even more difficult to assess is the obligation of the seller to
convey good title not only free from any security interest or lien, but
also free from any claim of a third party, like the claim that the goods
have already been sold to this third party. This obligation is based on
the principle that the buyer shall enjoy quiet possession and use of the
goods, unprejudiced and undisturbed by such third-party claims. The seller is thus under an obligation to fight off such claims at his own expense.
This obligation exists even, and particularly, [page 6-31] where
the third party's claims are of doubtful merit.[37] It is true, however, that the seller cannot be held liable if the claims put forward by a third party are obviously unfounded, frivolous or vexatious. Yet difficulties are to be expected in the provision's practical application. If a third party asserts an unjustified claim that does not display its lack of merit on its face, the resulting detriment to the buyer may well constitute a fundamental breach of the contract that would authorize avoidance. If
the seller now fights off the unfounded claim in legal proceedings
lasting for years, the question arises whether he can require performance of
the contract after this litigation has been successfully completed. In such
cases, it would be hard to deny the buyer's right to consider this long-standing uncertainty a fundamental breach. Third-party claims, therefore, constitute a considerable risk to the seller, and it is not altogether
inconceivable that a buyer who regrets having concluded the contract
might conspire with a third party in order to provoke avoidance. But on
weighing carefully whether the risk of unjustified litigation should be
carried by the seller or the buyer, the Convention's solution seems to
me to have its merit. It should also be taken into account that such
third-party claims are likely to be subject to domestic law and that the
controlling law will in many cases be that of the seller's country.
Above all, however, the seller has better access than the buyer to the
case history of the goods from which such claims may have arisen, and
it is therefore easier for him to investigate.
Not included in the notion of third-party claims are administrative
restrictions upon use, such as restrictions based on national protective
legislation for the benefit of employees or consumers, on environmental protection laws, and so
on. If the importing country prohibits the operation of a chemical
plant because it emits too many pollutants, there may be non-conformity under aticle 35, but not article 41. The practical import of this distinction is that" where [page 6-32] article 35(2) is applied, the buyer's mere knowledge suffices to free the seller from all liability.
Another case not falling under article 41 is the sovereign
seizure of the goods before delivery, for example, because the
export of the goods in question would violate an export ban. In
this case, there may be a breach of the obligation to deliver
A particularly interesting provision is article 42 which obliges
the seller, to some extent, to deliver goods which are free from
third-party claims based on a patent or other industrial or
intellectual property. UCC section 2-312(3) imposes upon the
seller a warranty "that the goods shall be delivered free of any
rightful claim of any third person by way of infringement or the
like." Similarly, German law treats as defective title the case
where a third person claims a patent right. In my view, however,
it is more natural to put such infringements by a real or alleged
claim of a third person on a level equal to non-conformity,
because the seller's responsibility for the freedom from adverse
claims is not absolute but, quite simply, conditioned upon a
corresponding impairment of the goods' usefulness. The seller
is not liable merely on the ground that there may exist a patent
or other right based on industrial property anywhere in the
world; rather, he can only be held liable if such a right exists or
is claimed under the law of the State where the goods are to be used, whether by resale or otherwise (article 41(1)(a)).
And if this State is not apparent from the contract, the seller is
responsible only for the freedom from such claims under the
law of the State where the buyer has his place of business
(article 42(1)(b)). This emphasizes the fact that the seller's
obligations are determined by the place where the goods are to
be used, just as according to article 35(2) the intended use of
the goods determines conformity unless the parties have agreed
on something else. Admittedly, article 42 restricts [page 6-33] the seller's responsibility even further: he is liable for the freedom
from rights or claims based on industrial or other intellectual property
in a given country only if it was contemplated by the parties at the time
of conclusion of the contract that the goods would be resold or
otherwise used in that country. This rule also runs parallel to article
35 according to which the seller has to warrant any particular qualities
only if they have been agreed upon, or if the particular purpose has
been made known to him by the buyer prior to the conclusion of the
contract. Apart from that, he is liable only for the "usual case," that is,
use in the State of the buyer. Beyond that, article 42(1) protects the
seller also insofar as it is a prerequisite to his liability that he knew
or could not have been unaware of the right or claim at the time of
conclusion of the contract. This, in fact, involves an element of fault
because even if the seller knew in which State the goods were to be
used or resold, he may avoid liability if he has relied on the
trustworthy information of a lawyer to the effect that in this State
there are no such rights which might infringe on use or resale.
Moreover, the seller is not liable -- again in accordance with the rules
regarding non-conformity -- where at the time of the conclusion of the
contract the buyer knew or could not have been unaware of the right
or claim (article 42(2)(a), or where the right or claim results from the seller's compliance with
technical drawings, designs, formulae or other specifications
furnished by the buyer (article 42-2)(b)). It must be added, however,
that the buyer must have required the seller to comply with these
specifications; if they were mere proposals to the seller and he was free to choose alternatives, it
seems questionable whether he can take the specifications suggested
by the buyer although he knows that they violate a patent.
Moreover, where there is a responsibility for freedom of the goods from third-party rights. or claims, whatever these are based on -- property, lien, sale to a third party, industrial or intellectual property -- the buyer must always give notice [page 6-34] within a reasonable time (article 43(1)). This notice must specify the
nature of the right or claim of the third party. Unlike the notice of non-conformity, this notice is not subject to a cut-off period of two
years as mentioned in article 39(2). On the other hand, as does article
40, article 43(2) states that the seller is not entitled to rely on a
failure to give notice if he knew of the right or claim of the third party.
At least for the rights or claims based on intellectual or industrial
property, the obligation to give timely notice admittedly plays a role
only in the borderline cases where the seller could not have been
unaware of the right -- as a condition for his responsibility under article
42(1) -- but not where he positively knew of it (article 43(2)).
A complicated problem may arise if the buyer requires the seller
to remedy the "encumbrance" of the goods by a patent or other
industrial property right of a third party. Is there an obligation of the
seller to cure by fighting off the infringement claim or replacing the
offending part of a machine by another non-patented part? Can the
buyer demand such "performance" only under restrictions similar to
those mentioned in article 46(2) and (3)? This again is a matter of remedies and therefore not my topic, but it seems to me that
the question depends on the characterization of the seller's obligation
under article 42.
So much for my presentation of the regulations for the seller's
obligations in chapter II, sections 1 and 2 of the United Nations
Convention. I have repeatedly intimated that I think the solutions of the Convention are, all in all, practicable
and well worked out. In any event, I much prefer them to the rules of
German law which are overburdened with historical conditions of
origin. Of course, only its practical application will allow a final
judgment on the Convention's quality. I very much hope it will come
to that.[page 6-35]
7. See UNCITRAL Commentary, supra note 6, at p. 86, under no. 3. 8. Cf. George Mitchell (Chesterhall) Ltd. v. Finney Lock Seeds Ltd., [1983] 3 W.L.R. 163 (H.L.). In Germany there are numerous cases of delivery of the wrong seed where it was open to question whether there was any delivery at all, raising the issue of breach, or whether the goods were so different from those contracted for that the rules usually governing contracts no longer applied
(see the reasons given by Parker, J., in the court of first instance in the English case cited above).
14. In this context, it must be reiterated that, as stated in UCC 1-102(4), the express reference to the possibility of agreement on a certain term by virtue of party autonomy does not exclude the possibility of varying other provisions also. Cf. Honnold, op. cit. supra note 4, at 245 no. 216 note 2. 15. Cf. comment by Vollkommer in O. Jauemig, Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch § 271 note 3a (2d ed. 1981).
19. Cf. Knöpfle, Zur Probematik des subjectiven Fehlerbegriffes im Kaufrecht,
JZ 78, 121, once again propagating an "objective" definition of defect.
20. Randall v. Newson, 2 Q.B. 102 (C.A. 1877), quoted in Honnold, op. cit.
supra note 4, at 249 no. 222 note 1.
28. Pakistan's request to lay down "implied warranties for a reasonable period as the case may be" was therefore unnecessary because in the cases
falling under art. 35(2)(a) and (b), the qualities promised constitute a warranty of the lifetime requisite for the goods or the purpose.
31. Cf. comment by Stumpf in Dölle, op. cit. supra note 2, art. 34 no. 3. 32. To the same effect see Honnold, op. cit. supra note 4, at 265 no. 240.