English Sales Law in the 21st Century

We were delighted to have Professor Djakhongir Saidov in our School of Law, delivering a comprehensive and though-provoking seminar, titled ‘English Sales Law in the 21st Century’.

In this seminar, Professor Djakhongir Saidov reflected on the current state of English sales law.

The presentation explored several broad themes that are central to the viability and strength of English sales law.

Those themes included: 

• legal responses of sales law to technological advancements
• diversity of commercial contexts and sales contracts: is English law too pre-occupied with the commodities trade and does it have due regard to other sectors and contracts, such as long-term sales agreements? 
• underlying policies: the right balance between legal certainty and fairness/flexibility?
• looking into the substance: which areas are ripe for reform?
• English sales law and the Vienna Sales Convention (CISG): what can English law learn from the CISG experience and should the CISG become part of the UK law? 

Drawing on these themes, Professor Saidov’s presentation highlighted the directions in which English sales law should move forward to remain a leading international sales law regime in the 21st century. 

Biography

Djakhongir Saidov is Professor of Commercial Law at The Dickson Poon School of Law, King’s College London, Consultant at Helmsman LLC, Advocates & Solicitors, Singapore, and an Academic Fellow of the Centre for Maritime Law, National University of Singapore where he has also been a Visiting Professor for a number of years.

He has published extensively on various aspects of the law of sale of goods, remedies for breach of contract, the law of oil and gas, the law of expert determination and international commercial law instruments (including two monographs: The Law of Damages in International Sales – The CISG and Other International Instruments, 2nd edn (Oxford, Hard Publishing 2021); Conformity of Goods and Documents – The Vienna Sales Convention (Oxford, Hard Publishing 2015)).

He was a Rapporteur to the CISG Advisory Council (CISG-AC) on its Opinion No 19 on ‘Standards and Conformity of the Goods under Article 35 CISG’ and, between 2009 and 2022, the Editor of ‘English Sale of Goods Law’ in the Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly (LMCLQ) International Maritime and Commercial Law Yearbook.