Chinese appellate court interprets Art. 2(a) CISG

On 21 April 2021, the Intermediate People's Court Dezhou, Shandong Province (China), sitting as an appellate court, issued its decision in the case Yang Jianbing v. Yucheng Huayu Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.. An abstract of the decision has kindly been written by Geng Wang and been reviewed by our international contributor Peng Guo, whom we thank for their valuable work. The abstract can now be accessed via the case presentation about CISG-online no. 5631 (below).

In its appellate decision, the Court inter alia interprets and applies Art. 2(a) CISG to the purchase of agricultural equipment by a buyer based in Canada (Yang Jianbing) from a seller based in China (Yucheng Huayu Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd.). In this context, the main issue was whether the prerequisites of Art. 2(a) CISG, which excludes purchases of goods "bought for personal, family or household use" from the 1980 Sales Convention's sphere of application, are also fulfilled where the goods are not only bought to meet personal and household needs, but also for a commercial purpose (in the present case: to run the buyer's farm in Canada). In affirming the decision of the court of first instance, which had applied the CISG to the sales transaction at hand, the appellate court held that Art. 2(a) CISG does not exclude such purchases (for "dual" purposes) from the Sales Convention's scope, and accordingly held that the CISG was applicable.