Source: http://www.cisg.law.pace.edu/cisg/text/e-text-39.html
Timestamp: 2013-12-05 14:38:33
Document Index: 22333062

Matched Legal Cases: ['Art. 38', 'Art. 44', 'Art. 30', 'art64', 'Art. 39', 'Art. 39']

(1) The buyer loses the right to rely on a lack of conformity of the goods
if he does not give
notice to the seller specifying the nature of the lack of conformity within
(2) In any event, the buyer loses the right to rely on a lack of conformity
of the goods if he
does not give the seller notice thereof at the latest within a period of two
on which the goods were actually handed over to the buyer, unless this
time-limit is
inconsistent with a contractual period of guarantee. Legislative history || Case law || Scholarly writings || Links to related articles
1978 draft (to validate Secretariat Commentary) CISG-AC Advisory Opinion on Articles 38 and 39 Legislative history
Chronology of development of Article 39 at the 1980 Vienna Diplomatic Conference
North-South tensions over Art. 38/39: development of compromise Art. 44 "safety net"
Article 39 match-up with
CASES INVOLVING CISG ARTICLE 39
Peter Schlechtriem [Germany], in: Uniform Sales Law in the Decisions of the Bundesgerichtshof (2001), at Section IV.2
For 1999 Supreme Court rulings on timeliness of notice under Article 39(1), full text English translation of each case provided, go to:
Cour de Cassation [France], Société Karl Schreiber GmbH v. Société Thermo Dynamique Service et autres, 26 May 1999
Oberster Gerichtshof [Austria] 27 August 1999
Bundesgerichtshof [Germany] 3 November 1999 [case text accompanied by English translation of commentary by Peter Schlechtriem]
For comments on these and other cases published in Fall 2000, go to:
Claude Witz [France], A Raw Nerve in Disputes relating to the Vienna Sales Convention: The Reasonable time for the Buyer to Give Notice of a Lack of Conformity, ICC International Court of Arbitration Bulletin, Vol. 11/No. 2 (2000) 15-21
Earlier, for the most part lower court cases, on notice issues are cited in Camilla Andersen, Reasonable Time in Article 39(1) of the CISG, in: Pace ed., Review of the Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (1998) 66-176
UNCITRAL digest + added cases Israel 17 March 2009 Supreme Court (analysis of doctrine and jurisprudence on the interplay between Arts. 39(2) and 40)
Comments on Article 39 from seminal 1986 text by Peter Schlechtriem [Germany] Comments on Article 39 from monograph by Jacob S. Ziegel [Canada]
Comments on Article 39 by Kazuaki Sono [Japan] in 1987 Bianca-Bonell Commentary on the International Sales Law
Comments on Article 39 by John O. Honnold [U.S.] in the 3rd ed. (1999) of the most frequently cited text on the CISG: Uniform Law for International Sales
Comments on Article 39 in December 2000 text by Joseph Lookofsky [Denmark / U.S.]
Commentarios al Articulo 39 sobre textos de 2001 por Pilar Perales [España]
Selected law journal articles and other commentaries Fritz Enderlein [Germany (DDR)], Rights and Obligations of the Seller under the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods [General obligations: Art. 30], in Sarcevic / Volken ed., International Sale of Goods: Dubrovnik Lectures, Oceana (1996) at 169-174
Franco Ferrari [Italy], Tribunale di Vigevano: Specific Aspects of the CISG Uniformly Dealt With, 20 Journal of Law and Commerce (Spring 2001) 225-239 [Timely notice of non-conformity / Specificity of the notice of non-conformity: 234-236]
Harry M. Flechtner [U.S.], Conformity of Goods, Third Party Claims, and Buyer's Notice of Breach under the CISG ... University of Pittsburgh School of Law Working Paper Series. Working Paper 64 (August 2007) <http://law.bepress.com/pittlwps/papers/art64>, Section III
Daniel Girsberger [Switzerland], The Time Limits of Article 39 CISG, 25 Journal of Law and Commerce (2005-2006) 241-251 Klaus Günther, Rügeerfordernisse im internationalen Handelsverkehr gemä Artikel 39 CISG [Loss of remedies in international sales under Article 39 CISG - in German], in: Baums/Hopt/Horn eds., Corporations, Capital Markets and Business in the Law: Liber Amicorum Richard M. Buxbaum, Kluwer Law International (2000) 235-251
Anselmo M. Mart�nez Ca�ellas [Spain], La prescripci�n de las acciones de la CISG derivadas de la falta de conformidad de las cosas entregadas [The subject of this article is the reasonable period of time for notice of lack of conformity of goods under CISG article 39 - in Spanish], in: Michael R. Will ed., Rudolf Meyer zum Abschied: Dialog Deutschland-Schweiz VII,
Facult� de droit, Universit� de Gen�ve (1999) 165-183
John C. Reitz [U.S.], A History of Cutoff Rules as a Form of Caveat: Part II - The 1980 U.N. Convention on the International Sale of Goods, 36 American Journal of Comparative Law (1989) 247-299
Peter Schlechtriem [Germany], Commentary on issues associated with Article 39(1): Lack of conformity notice, timeliness (commentary provided with database case presentation at "cisgw3.law.pace.edu/cases/991103g1.html"] (2000)
Ingeborg Schwenzer [Germany / Switzerland], National Preconceptions that Endanger Uniformity, 19 Pace International Law Review (Spring 2007/1)
Martin Taschner, Zur Rechtzeitigkeit der Rüge der Vertragswidrigkeit gem. UNWAVTRÜBK Art. 39 Abs. 1 ["Reasonable time" under Art. 39(1) (comments on BGH 3 November 1999) - in German] Transportrecht -Internationales Handelsrecht (2000) 3-4
Anna Veneziano [Italy], Nonconformity of goods in international sales: a survey of current case law on CISG/Non-conformit� des marchandises
dans les ventes internationales: �tude de la jurisprudence actuelle sur la CVIM, Revue de droit des affaires internationales / International business law journal: Forum europ�en de la communication (Paris 1997) 39-65
Supplementary list of citations to Article 39 commentaries: Unilex citations*
To identify other relevant commentaries, go to the cisgw3 Bibliography and Bibliography Search Form [notice, conformity and nonconformity are search form entries you may wish to consider]
Citations on conformity
Go to Annotated Text of Article 35; go to Annotated Text of Article 38 [Time for examining the goods]; go to Annotated Text of Article 40 [Seller's knowledge of lack of conformity]; go to Annotated Text of Article 44 [Excuse for failure to notify]
Article 39 is a "gateway provision". Compliance with its terms (subject to Articles 40 and 44) is a prerequisite to all remedies under the CISG for lack of conformity of the goods. Hence, Article 39 should also be linked to all of the CISG's provisions on buyer's remedies for lack of conformity of the goods.
"lack of conformity of the goods". "Reference should . . . be made to the various official texts of the Convention to resolve ambiguities in one of the texts. For example, article 39 states that the buyer must notify the seller of a lack of conformity within a reasonable time after discovery. On this score, the English text refers to the "[lack of] conformity of the goods." Does this restriction mean that article 39 is inapplicable if the non-conformity appears in the documents instead of in the goods -- although delivery of documents is closely associated in the Convention with delivery of the goods themselves? The French text is not as restrictive and speaks of défault de conformité in general terms." Bernard Audit, "The Vienna Sales Convention and the Lex Mercatoria", in: Lex Mercatoria and Arbitration, rev. ed., T. Carboneau ed. (Juris Publishing 1998) 188. [citations omitted]
electronic communications. For a current and authoritative ruling on electronic communications and article 39, go to CISG-AC Opinion no. 1, Electronic Communication under CISG, 15 August 2003. Rapporteur: Professor Christina Ramberg, Gothenburg, Sweden. For further comments on the impact of electronic communications on Article 39 and other provisions of the Convention, go to Siegfried Eiselen [South Africa], Electronic commerce and the U.N. Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) 1980, 6 EDI Law Review (1999) 21-46
reasonableness [39(1)]. In addition to being specifically mentioned in this article, reasonableness is a general principle of the CISG For the definition of reasonableness recited in the Principles of European Contract Law and references to reasonableness in Continental and Common Law domestic rules, doctrine and jurisprudence, go to PECL article 1:302 and the comment and notes prepared for this provision To drive home the correlation between the PECL's definition of reasonableness and the evident same meaning of this term to CISG legislators when they used the concept either specifically or as a general principle of the uniform law they drafted, see overview comments and comments that illustrate the similar manner in which this concept fits the CISG For a Doctoral thesis on "Reasonableness" in International Commercial Law, go to Guillaume Weiszberg, Le "Raisonnable" en Droit du Commerce International [pour le doctorat en droit de l�Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris II), 7 novembre 2003]
International Commercial Law - Last updated September 18, 2009 Comments/Contributions