|
||||||||||||||||||
| Abstract | ||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||
| An Italian seller and a Swiss buyer concluded a contract for the print, binding and delivery of books by the seller in the interest of the buyer. When both a delivery of art catalogues and a delivery of other books remained unpaid, the seller claimed payment and interest.
The Court held that CISG was applicable to the contract under Art. 3(1) CISG as the books were to be printed and bound by the seller who would also supply the materials. With respect to the buyer's counterclaim concerning lack of conformity, the Court ruled that the buyer had lost its rights under CISG as it did not give notice to the seller within the time prescribed in Art. 39(1) CISG, specifying the nature of the lack of conformity. The Court observed that the notice should be sufficiently specific, especially when the buyer as in the case at hand is an expert in the field, so that a generic statement like the goods are not conforming would not be sufficient. Moreover, even if a specific notice had been given in due time, the buyer would not have been entitled to claim price reduction or damages for the misprint in the catalogue, since while the seller could well be held responsible for minor defects of the goods if they reduced the goods' value, a single, minor misprint that was not immediately detectable and left the book readable did not impair its value and thus did not entitle the buyer to any claims. The seller was thus granted payment and interest on it under Art. 78 CISG. Absent an express provision in CISG, the Court held that the interest rate was to be determined in accordance with the law otherwise applicable to the contract, that is Italian law. |