In the case of sale of goods the goods may get destroyed or they may be damaged. Then the question arises of who has to bear the risk of this loss or destruction. If the buyer has to bear these risks then he has to pay for the goods even though they are perished or destroyed. If the goods are at the risk of the seller, he loses the right to claim payment on the goods insofar as they are perished or destroyed. In international trade this question is not equally regulated by the different legal systems. Differences are especially noticeable when goods are shipped by one party to the other.

A brief survey of this question will show the solutions in comparative law, in the autonomous law introduced by the standard contracts and the unified international rules. Under standard contracts we have to examine the contracts of the trade associations, the general conditions of contracts introduced under the auspices of the Economic Commission of Europe and the General Conditions of Delivery of Goods between Organisations of the Member Countries of the Council for the Mutual Economic Aid (GCD CMEA 1968), Comecon. It is interesting to note the great number of similarities on the one side and some of the deep major differences on the other.

Under the unified international rules the convention relating to a Uniform Law on the International Sale of Goods has to be taken into consideration (The Hague, April, 1964). The survey will not describe the regulations from State to State. The intention is first to show the different solutions and only in the second place to call attention to the country which adheres to these solutions.

In many legal systems there is a general rule that the goods are at the risk of the person whose property they are. However, this is only a general rule which is to be applied when there is no solution provided for the given case. Today it has been ascertained that the transference of the risk does not necessarily coincide with the acquisition of ownership. Some laws expressly point out this view: in the Czechoslovak Code of International Trade (1963) it is especially provided that the risk of loss or damage of the object passes from the seller to the buyer with the handing over regardless of the time of the transfer of property and regardless of the dependence of the contract on a condition. The parties are free to choose an earlier moment for the transference of risks if the goods are sufficiently determined (para. 380). According to arts. 322 and 324 of the same Code the ownership is acquired at the moment of handing over, but the parties may determine another moment.

The risk may pass from the seller to the buyer at the moment when the contract is concluded. This is the standpoint of the Swiss Code of Obligations which reads: