Do the provisions of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 on the passing of Essay

Do the provisions of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 on the passing of property and risk, and their effects, make sense today - Essay Example This paper looks at the Sale of Goods Act of 1979 with regard to its relevance in the modern business environment. It does this by looking at some of the changes which have happened in the recent times, such as the introduction of ecommerce and how this affects the relevance of the Act. The Sale of Goods Act of 1979 was meant to make the transaction of goods between one individual and another easy. It took care of how goods are transferred from one point to the other and also the contractual obligation that regard such transaction. The act also details the issues of how ownership is transferred, and what triggers this ownership transfer. Like most acts which are meant to make the business world run in a smooth way, the act has a number of issues which must be taken into consideration. This is because as Rotherham (89) argues, the business world has evolved a lot in the past twenty years and although the Sale of Goods Act 1979 was amended in 1995 to highlight some new challenges in the business world, it still faces many issues as the nature of business has changed. Some of these issues include the following; When the act was being drafted 35 years ago in 1979, the nature of business was much differentiated from the way it is today. International trade was not as established as it is today. Because of this, the Act seems to have only considered the transaction of business within the borders and between people under the same legal jurisdiction. However, international trade has changed over time and in the modern commerce world, it is often that individuals are trading across the UK borders and the international borders. This brings in numerous challenges because the parties to a business translation may not necessarily be under the English law. The Sale of Goods Act 1979 lacks a lot with regard to dealing with this modern business environment. The Act of 1979 has several rules as regards the transfer of