Non-conformity of Goods in Light of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods and the Law on Obligations of the Republic of Macedonia as Part of South-Eastern European Law

Abstract

In the practice of sales contracts there are several possible ways in which the seller fails to fulfill his obligations under contract, including: non-delivery or delay in delivery of goods, delivery of non-conforming goods, failure to hand over any documents relating to them and failure in transfer property in the goods. A substantial portion of all sales litigation relates to conformity of goods i.e. in that they do not conform to that which has been agreed. The purpose of this paper is to examine the legal provisions of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (hereafter CISG) and the Law on Obligations of the Republic of Macedonia (hereafter Law) which regulate the issue of conformity of the goods. Article 35 is the central article of the CISG according to which the goods must conform in the first place to the quantity, quality and description required by the contractual provisions and to be contained or packaged in the manner required by the contract. On the other hand, Article 467 (supplemented by Article 480 and Article 481) of the Law speaks to defects in goods instead of examining issues such a quality, description or packing of the goods. Considering this different approach between two articles the author through the comparative method will aim to highlight the similarities and differences between these two legal instruments in terms of conformity of goods with the contractual agreement.

DOI: 10.5901/ajis.2015.v4n2s1p85