TEST case of the utmost importance to anyone engaged in the import trade in China was heard on Saturday before the Third Branch of the Kiangsu High Court, in the French Concession. The Austrian firm, Molnar and Greiner, paper importers, sued a Chinese firm, the Ya Cheng Purchasing Agency and their guarantors, the Bank of Agriculture, seeking to recover the price of a consignment of paper imported for their account.from Austria, which due to the war, was partly discharged at Iloilo and partly stored in Trieste during 1937. The Chinese buyers failed to take delivery and to pay the price against surrender of the bill of 3*-lading as requested by the sellers, claiming that the sellers had failed in their obligation to deliver the goods in Shanghai.
The sellers, on their part, claim that the hearing in the High Court on Saturday, on behalf of the appellants, his arguments pointing out that the key to a decision of the case rested exclusively on the interpretation and Kt application thi consequent the Court would give of the C.LF. clause. same articles of Law do not apply to.|C.LF. contracts which are subject to different definite provisions.
In conclusion, stated counsel, both the Chinese Civil Law and Chinese jurisprudence are silent on the subject, and custom has therefore to be applied. That the letters CIF. represent a kind of "trade mark" for a contract of a special nature, there can be no doubt; which are the individual rules by which this particular contract is governed, is a matter of evidence. According to an extract from the incoterms 1906, presented by counsel it is an established international rule that all risks for the thing sold under C.LF. terms are transferred to the buyer the moment the thing goes over the ship's rails at the port of shipment.
Although given ample opportunity to do so, the Chinese Courts have so for abstained from giving a clear decision of principle on this question and have to dispose of cases.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.