SESSIONS ON THE UNIFORM ACT RELATING TO GENERAL COMMERCIAL LAW

It has been recalled that before the enforcement of Ohada Uniform Act on general commercial law on January 1st, 1998, there were several, scattered laws in this field. This Uniform Act, which aimed at updating and strengthening legal security in business with a renewed traders' status, was including various innovations and implementation problems which needed to be presented.

While noting that this Uniform Act had updated the traders' status and the rules governing their contractual instruments, in addition to the changes introduced in commercial sales, have been reviewed the innovations added (renewal of traders' status, specific prescription as to commercial debts, updating of the trade register, new rules governing commercial sales including the reservation of property clause …).

Then, the problems in the implementation of this Uniform Act have been presented, among which  :

- an ambiguous provision on traders' status,

- the famous controversial problem of the qualified court as to the termination of commercial leases,

- the lack of provision in the event of sale taking place in two different legal environments,

- the problems relating to the inclusion of tacit renewal clauses in commercial leases.

The lecture, interrupted by some questions and exchanges on the implementation problems raised (and notably on the problem of the qualifed court in the cancellation of commercial leases), has also lead to some clarifications on avoidance clauses in these leases.