5.9 Remedies for Breach of the Contract

The common catalogue (both parties): Specific performance — the court may order it (the civil-law favour; the common-law discretion — the Convention's compromise); Avoidance — the termination: the FUNDAMENTAL BREACH threshold (the detriment substantially depriving the expected benefit) or the nachfrist's expiry (the extra period's notice unanswered); Price reduction — the proportionate answer to non-conformity (the buyer's retained goods); Damages — the full compensation: the loss including lost profit, but not beyond the FORESEEABLE sphere; the substitute-transaction and current-price calculations; Interest — on the price in arrears. Exam Focus Long questions: (i) The CISG's features (scope, formation-sale parts, autonomy, interpretation); (ii) The seller's and buyer's obligations-and-rights (the two lists, in order — with the NOTICE discipline highlighted); (iii) The risk of loss (the delivery rule, the qualifications, the Incoterms' primacy); (iv) The remedies with the fundamental-breach threshold. Short questions: conformity; fundamental breach; the notice's discipline; the nachfrist. Trick areas: (i) The risk passes on DELIVERY, not on property's transfer or contract — but the PARTIES' term (Incoterms) overrides; (ii) The buyer's untimely notice of non- conformity loses the conformity claims — the trap examiners set; (iii) The CISG is the DEFAULT law — exclusion by the parties is always possible (and the professional drafters' habit).