A French seller and a Dutch buyer concluded a number of contracts for the delivery of gas compressors. A customer to which the buyer had resold a part of the goods declared the sales contract avoided alleging that the compressors did not conform to the requirements of the Dutch legislation then in force. The buyer refused to pay the price for the compressors on the basis that the goods did not conform to the Dutch legislation and that the seller had breached its duty to hand over the documents containing information on the manufacturing process of the goods.
The lower Court's decisions mentioned Art. 34 CISG on the consequences of a seller's duty to hand over documents relating to the goods and discussed the question as to whether under the applicable domestic law the seller was obliged to hand over the documents on the manufacturing process even in the absence of a contractual agreement to do so.
On appeal the Court held that the buyer had lost the right to rely on the fact that the documents were missing since it had not examined the goods in as short a period as practicable and had not given notice to the seller within a reasonable time (Arts. 38 and 39 CISG). The buyer informed the seller almost three months after delivery, while it could be expected that a dealer in medical equipment such as the buyer would have checked immediately whether the requested documents were present and informed the seller of their absence shortly afterwards. |