The Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act 1973
| Date | 01 September 1973 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1973.tb01383.x |
| Author | Christopher Carr |
| Published date | 01 September 1973 |
THE
SUPPLY
OF
GOODS
(IMPLIED TERMS)
ACT
1973
1.
Introduction
On May
18, 1073,
the Supply of Goods (Implied Terms) Act
1973
came into force. The Act is based upon the First Report
on
Exemption Clauses in Contracts produced jointly by the Law
Commission and Scottish Law Commission.2 The Report concerned
the implied conditions and warranties of the Sale of Goods Act
1898.*
The
1973
Act adopts the Report’s recommendations and
many of its drafting suggestions. The Act also goes beyond the
Report in that it repeals the implied conditions and warranties and
accompanying provisions contained in sections
17-20
of the Hire-
Purchase Act
1965
and section
4
of the Trading Stamps Act
1964
and enacts
a
new set of conditions and warranties along the lines
of those provided for the sale of goods. Leases, bailments and
exchange contracts are not covered by the Act and hence
it
falls
short of dealing with all transactions in which the right to enjoy
the use of goods
is
transferred.
The
1973
Act embodies several significant features: it extends
the reach
of
the implied conditions and warranties of the
1893
Act; it recognises explicitly that the law of contract can no longer
bear the strain of providing principles designed to serve equally
well for the regulation of consumer and non-consumer sales; it
carries the principle of discriminating between consumer and non-
consumer transactions through into the area of hire-purchase,
thereby partially rejecting the crude technique of gearing the
ambit of consumer protection to the amount involved in the
transaction
5;
it outlaws exclusion of the statutorily implied terms
in consumer transactions and inhibits exclusion in non-consumer
transactions; it brings the terms to be implied in hire-purchase
and conditional sale into line with the terms to be implied in sale.
The techniques used to carry out the amendments made by the
1
Hereafter referred to a8 the
1973
Act.
2
Law Commission
No.
24;
Scottish Law Commission
No.
12;
referred
to
hereafter as the Law CommisRion Report.
J
Hereafter referred to
as
the
1893
Act.
4
Hereafter referred to as the
1965
Act.
6
This change in the technique of identifying
a
consumer hire-purchase trans-
action is limited in scope.
It
extends
only
to the
1973
Act’s equivalent of
the implied terms contained in the
1965
Act
(88.
17-20).
Thus, the
new
implied
conditions and warranties apply to
“
consumer hire-purchase agreements
”
(as defined in the
1973
Act) whereas the other consumer protection provisions
of
the
1965
Act (such
ES
rights of cancellation, rights in connection with making
the agreement etc.) continue to depend
on
the amount involved in the
transaction. Presumably such schematic incongruities will be removed in
time.
519
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