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9. Contact - got a question about Uniform Commercial Code, or want to leave a comment then check out the sites contact page. Reputable companies have them and respond.
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The
Uniform Commercial Code (
UCC or the Code) is one of a number of
List of Uniform Acts (United States) that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of
sales and other commercial transactions in all 50
U.S. states within the
United States. This objective is deemed important because of the prevalence today of commercial transactions that extend beyond one state (for example, where the goods are manufactured in state A, warehoused in state B, sold from state C and delivered in state D). The UCC deals primarily with transactions involving personal property (moveable property), not real property (immovable property).
The UCC is the longest and most elaborate of the uniform acts. It has been a long-term, joint project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the American Law Institute (ALI). Judge Herbert F. Goodrich was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the original 1952 edition , and the Code itself was drafted by some of the top legal scholars in the United States, including such luminaries as
Karl N. Llewellyn, Soia Mentschikoff, and
Grant Gilmore. The Code, as the product of private organizations, is not itself the law, but only recommendation of the laws that should be adopted in the states. Once enacted in a state by the state's legislature, it becomes true law and is codified into the state’s code of statutes. When the Code is adopted by a state, it may be adopted verbatim as written by ALI/NCCUSL, or may be adopted with specific changes deemed necessary by the state legislature. Unless such changes are minor, they can affect the purpose of the Code in promoting uniformity of law among the various states.
The ALI/NCCUSL have also established a permanent editorial board for the Code. This board has issued a number of official comments and other published papers concerning the Code. Although these commentaries do not have the force of law, courts interpreting the Code often cite them as persuasive authority in determining the effect of one or more provisions. Courts interpreting the Code generally seek to harmonize their interpretations with those of other states that have adopted the same or a similar provision, except where specific aspects of the Code were changed by that state when adopting it, or where other aspects of state law require a different decision.
The Code, in one or another of its several revisions, has been enacted in all of the 50 states, as well as in the
District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Louisiana has enacted most provisions of the UCC with the exception of Article 2, preferring to maintain its own civil law (legal system) tradition for governing the sale of goods.
Louisiana law refers to the sections of the UCC as “chapters” instead of articles, since the term “articles” is used to refer to provisions of the state’s Civil Code. However, the use of different terms for UCC articles is not unique to Louisiana; neighboring
Arkansas also refers to UCC articles as “chapters”, the term for equivalent subdivisions in its code of statutes. (“Article” in that state's law generally refers to a subdivision of the
Arkansas Constitution.)
UCC Articles
The Uniform Commercial Code deals with the following subjects under consecutively numbered Articles:
{| class="wikitable" style="left; text-align:center; margin:1em 0 1em 1em"|-!
ART.|
TITLE|
CONTENTS|-|-! 1|
General Provisions| Definitions, rules of
Statutory interpretation|-! 2|
Sales] of good (accounting)s|-! 2A|
Leases]s of
good (accounting)s|-! 3|
Negotiable Instruments]s and
cheque (
commercial paper)] Deposits| Banks and banking, check collection process|-! 4A|
Funds Transfers| Transfers of money between banks|-! 5|
Letter of credit| Transactions involving letters of credit|-! 6|
Bulk Transfers and Bulk Sales| Auctions and liquidations of assets] Receipts, Bill of Lading and Other Documents of
Title (property)| Storage and bailment of good (accounting)s|-! 8|
Investment Securities| Security (finance) and financial assets|-! 9|
Secured Transactions| Transactions secured by
security interests], the
National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recommended that Article 6 of the UCC, dealing with bulk sales, be repealed as obsolete. It remains in force in several jurisdictions.
A major revision of Article 9, dealing primarily with transactions in which personal property is used as security for a loan or extension of credit, was enacted in many states with an effective date of July 1, 2001.
The controversy surrounding what is now termed the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) originated in the process of revising Article 2 of the UCC. The provisions of what is now UCITA were originally meant to be "Article 2B" within a revised Article 2 on Sales. As the UCC is the only List of Uniform Acts (United States) that is a joint project of NCCUSL and the ALI; both associations must agree to any revision of the UCC (i.e., the model act; revisions to the law of a particular state only require enactment in that state). The proposed final draft of Article 2B met with controversy within the ALI, and as a consequence the ALI did not grant its assent. The NCCUSL responded by renaming Article 2B and promulgating it as the UCITA. As of October 12, 2004, only Maryland and
Virginia have adopted UCITA.
The overriding philosophy of the Uniform Commercial Code is to allow people to make the contracts they want, but to fill in any missing provisions where the agreements they make are silent. The law also seeks to impose uniformity and streamlining of routine transactions like the processing of checks, notes, and other routine commercial paper. The law frequently distinguishes between merchants, who customarily deal in a commodity and are presumed to know well the business they are in, and
consumers, who are not.
The UCC also seeks to discourage the use of legal formalities in making business contracts, in order to allow business to move forward without the intervention of lawyers or the preparation of elaborate documents. This last point is perhaps the most questionable part of its underlying philosophy; many in the legal profession have argued that legal formalities discourage litigation by requiring some kind of ritual that provides a clear dividing line that tells people when they have made a final deal over which they could be sued.
Conspiracy Theories
The Uniform Commercial Code plays a significant part in the legal theories of far right groups such as the Christian Patriot movement,
Sovereign Citizen Movement, and the Posse Comitatus (U.S. movement). Their theory is that a secret treaty made in 1930 put the United States and other countries around the world in "bankruptcy" with the "international bankers" being the "creditor/rulers", who prefer commercial law to common law. An alternate theory, held by the Montana Freemen, is that an "affidavit of truth" submitted "in commerce" could create a lien which had to be paid, such as the "draft liens" created by LeRoy Schweitzer, who was eventually convicted of fraud and other federal crimes. The newer "redemption movement" even claims that the Uniform Commercial Code is now "actually the supreme law of the land".
See also
References
External links
- Text of the Uniform Commercial Code at the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University
- Link directory to online UCC filing sites for every state, LoanBack
The
Uniform Commercial Code (
UCC or the Code) is one of a number of List of Uniform Acts (United States) that have been promulgated in conjunction with efforts to harmonize the law of sales and other commercial transactions in all 50 U.S. states within the United States. This objective is deemed important because of the prevalence today of commercial transactions that extend beyond one state (for example, where the goods are manufactured in state A, warehoused in state B, sold from state C and delivered in state D). The UCC deals primarily with transactions involving personal property (moveable property), not real property (immovable property).
The UCC is the longest and most elaborate of the uniform acts. It has been a long-term, joint project of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL) and the
American Law Institute (ALI). Judge Herbert F. Goodrich was the Chairman of the Editorial Board of the original 1952 edition , and the Code itself was drafted by some of the top legal scholars in the United States, including such luminaries as
Karl N. Llewellyn,
Soia Mentschikoff, and Grant Gilmore. The Code, as the product of private organizations, is not itself the law, but only recommendation of the laws that should be adopted in the states. Once enacted in a state by the state's legislature, it becomes true law and is codified into the state’s code of statutes. When the Code is adopted by a state, it may be adopted verbatim as written by ALI/NCCUSL, or may be adopted with specific changes deemed necessary by the state legislature. Unless such changes are minor, they can affect the purpose of the Code in promoting uniformity of law among the various states.
The ALI/NCCUSL have also established a permanent editorial board for the Code. This board has issued a number of official comments and other published papers concerning the Code. Although these commentaries do not have the force of law, courts interpreting the Code often cite them as persuasive authority in determining the effect of one or more provisions. Courts interpreting the Code generally seek to harmonize their interpretations with those of other states that have adopted the same or a similar provision, except where specific aspects of the Code were changed by that state when adopting it, or where other aspects of state law require a different decision.
The Code, in one or another of its several revisions, has been enacted in all of the 50 states, as well as in the
District of Columbia, the
Commonwealth of Puerto Rico,
Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Louisiana has enacted most provisions of the UCC with the exception of Article 2, preferring to maintain its own
civil law (legal system) tradition for governing the sale of goods.
Louisiana law refers to the sections of the UCC as “chapters” instead of articles, since the term “articles” is used to refer to provisions of the state’s Civil Code. However, the use of different terms for UCC articles is not unique to Louisiana; neighboring Arkansas also refers to UCC articles as “chapters”, the term for equivalent subdivisions in its code of statutes. (“Article” in that state's law generally refers to a subdivision of the Arkansas Constitution.)
UCC Articles
The Uniform Commercial Code deals with the following subjects under consecutively numbered Articles:
{| class="wikitable" style="left; text-align:center; margin:1em 0 1em 1em"|-!
ART.|
TITLE|
CONTENTS|-|-! 1|
General Provisions| Definitions, rules of Statutory interpretation|-! 2|
Sales] of
good (accounting)s|-! 2A|
Leases]s of
good (accounting)s|-! 3|
Negotiable Instruments]s and cheque (commercial paper)] Deposits| Banks and banking, check collection process|-! 4A|
Funds Transfers| Transfers of money between banks|-! 5|
Letter of credit| Transactions involving letters of credit|-! 6|
Bulk Transfers and Bulk Sales|
Auctions and liquidations of assets] Receipts, Bill of Lading and Other Documents of
Title (property)| Storage and
bailment of good (accounting)s|-! 8|
Investment Securities|
Security (finance) and financial assets|-! 9|
Secured Transactions| Transactions secured by
security interests], the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recommended that Article 6 of the UCC, dealing with bulk sales, be repealed as obsolete. It remains in force in several jurisdictions.
A major revision of Article 9, dealing primarily with transactions in which personal property is used as security for a loan or extension of credit, was enacted in many states with an effective date of July 1, 2001.
The controversy surrounding what is now termed the
Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) originated in the process of revising Article 2 of the UCC. The provisions of what is now UCITA were originally meant to be "Article 2B" within a revised Article 2 on Sales. As the UCC is the only List of Uniform Acts (United States) that is a joint project of NCCUSL and the ALI; both associations must agree to any revision of the UCC (i.e., the model act; revisions to the law of a particular state only require enactment in that state). The proposed final draft of Article 2B met with controversy within the ALI, and as a consequence the ALI did not grant its assent. The NCCUSL responded by renaming Article 2B and promulgating it as the UCITA. As of October 12, 2004, only Maryland and
Virginia have adopted UCITA.
The overriding philosophy of the Uniform Commercial Code is to allow people to make the contracts they want, but to fill in any missing provisions where the agreements they make are silent. The law also seeks to impose uniformity and streamlining of routine transactions like the processing of checks, notes, and other routine commercial paper. The law frequently distinguishes between
merchants, who customarily deal in a commodity and are presumed to know well the business they are in, and consumers, who are not.
The UCC also seeks to discourage the use of legal formalities in making business contracts, in order to allow business to move forward without the intervention of lawyers or the preparation of elaborate documents. This last point is perhaps the most questionable part of its underlying philosophy; many in the legal profession have argued that legal formalities discourage litigation by requiring some kind of ritual that provides a clear dividing line that tells people when they have made a final deal over which they could be sued.
Conspiracy Theories
The Uniform Commercial Code plays a significant part in the legal theories of
far right groups such as the Christian Patriot movement, Sovereign Citizen Movement, and the Posse Comitatus (U.S. movement). Their theory is that a secret treaty made in 1930 put the United States and other countries around the world in "bankruptcy" with the "international bankers" being the "creditor/rulers", who prefer commercial law to common law. An alternate theory, held by the Montana Freemen, is that an "affidavit of truth" submitted "in commerce" could create a lien which had to be paid, such as the "draft liens" created by LeRoy Schweitzer, who was eventually convicted of fraud and other federal crimes. The newer "redemption movement" even claims that the Uniform Commercial Code is now "actually the supreme law of the land".
See also
References
External links
- Text of the Uniform Commercial Code at the Legal Information Institute, Cornell University
- Link directory to online UCC filing sites for every state, LoanBack
