ABSTRACT
The starting point under the Sale of Goods Act (SOGA) 1979 is that in domestic sales the transfer of risk and property is joined and goes pari passu. The legal rationale for the rule that within international commercial sales transactions the transfer of risk happens "on or as from shipment" is quite simple to discern: one should never forget that we are dealing with contracts concluded on shipment terms. The idea of the transfer of risk "on" shipment arises whenever the cargo has only one buyer, with consequently no need for any retroactive shift of the risk. The concept of the transfer of risk happening "as from shipment" entails the retroactive shift of the risk from the seller onto the last buyer in the case that the goods are traded down a string. The defendants received no information as to the shipment until the bills of lading were presented for payment.
