Abstract

The principal focus of this article is to critically test the application of the OHADA Uniform Act on General Commercial Law to barter-like transactions. It demonstrates how the Uniform Act lacks the necessary technical elements to govern bartering. The non-monetary nature of pure barter transactions appears to be the driving force for this author’s rejection of the application of the Uniform Act to barter. Although Article 262 of the Uniform Act requires the buyer to pay the price for the goods, the word ‘price’ is not defined by the Act. Thus, there is ambiguity as to whether or not a price must be monetary in application to barter contracts under the Uniform Act. This is the principal concern of the author inter alia in questioning whether the Uniform Act can be applied to barter-like transactions, because in a barter transaction, the price paid for the delivery of something is the reciprocal delivery of something else. Arguably, by leaving ‘price’ undefined, the drafters of the Uniform Act raise some ambiguity on its endorsement of the application of barter transactions. Thus, the conclusion in this article is based on the premise that the Uniform Act is not suitable to govern barter-like transactions.