Original scientific paper
Storage contract in Croatian and Macedonian law
Petar Ceronja
; Faculty of law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The paper deals with the storage contract as a very important legal transaction in economic terms. The focus of the paper is an analysis of the provisions of the Civil Obligations Act and a discussion of the storage contract from the point of view of comparative law. The rights and duties of contracting parties, the warehouseman and the depositor are explained, and an answer is provided to the question regarding the existence, significance, features and role of public warehouses in Croatian legal and business practice. The legal gap is filled in this part with a historical and comparative analysis of regulations past and present governing the activity of public warehousing.
The author emphasises that a storage contract is primarily a commercial legal transaction, but that, depending on the depositor, it may gain features of a consumer contract. In line with the above de lege ferenda, the author proposes certain amendments to the Civil Obligations Act with a view to providing additional protection to depositors-consumers as seen in German law.
The obligations of the warehouseman as a contracting party providing a specialised and complex service are considered in detail. Particular criticism is expressed of the provision of Article 754 of the COA, which regulates the matter of issuing a special document – the warehouse receipt, as being too vague. As a result, warehouse receipts are rarely issued in Croatian business practice. This fact underlines the importance of adopting such amendments.
The conclusion is drawn that there are no significant differences between Croatian and Macedonian law regarding the storage contract. Finally, by drawing a thorough comparison with German law, the author concludes that there are steps to be taken by the Croatian legislator in order to modernise and improve the regulations governing the warehousing activity, and proposes certain solutions de lege ferenda to that effect.
Keywords
storage contract; warehouseman; depositor; goods; public warehouse; warehouse receipt
Hrčak ID:
67144
URI
Publication date:
20.3.2011.
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