An Italian seller concluded a contract with a German buyer for the sale of goods. The buyer failed to pay the price. The seller commenced a legal action.
The Court held that the seller was entitled to payment of price and granted the seller interest on the unpaid price.
As to the applicable interest rate, the Court considered this to be a question governed but not expressly settled by CISG (Art. 7(2) CISG). The Court rejected the opinion according to which the interest rate, in order to achieve a uniform international regulation, shall be determined in accordance with the general principles on which CISG is based: as a matter of fact even when CISG was still only in the preparatory stage it had not been possible to reach a uniform solution to this problem. The Court thus gave preference to the opinion according to which recourse is to be had to the domestic law applicable by virtue of private international law rules. The interest rate was thus determined by Italian law as the law governing the contract in the absence of CISG. |