ABSTRACT
The chapter argues that the emergence of novel auctioneering methods in international sales may confront judges with a need to interpret the term ‘auction’ from the Vienna Sales Convention (CISG) uniformly, where at least two issues may be identified. First, the low-key wording of Art 2(b) CISG may lead to serious interpretive problems for courts in their pursuit of finding an autonomous meaning of auction. Second, the diversity of national preconceptions of an auction may lead these bodies to take conflicting standpoints contingent on their composition, resulting in a non-uniform interpretation of the CISG. The chapter offers different interpretive approaches to the term ‘sale by auction’, so as to find a new, uniform interpretation. The chapter also argues that the proposed uniform meaning of ‘sale by auction’ in the CISG could serve Croatian courts as a guideline for the interpretation of the term ‘sale by auction’ within the ambit of the Croatian law since the Croatian Obligations Act does not provide a ‘national’ concept of sale by auction. Finally, the chapter calls for revisiting the current term ‘sale by auction’ by proposing a redrafted term ‘sale by competitive bidding’ and explains how this solution would help overcome current interpretive drawbacks.
