Delivery in Commercial Law The Many Senses of Delivery
7 September 2026 (Monday), 12:30 – 1:30 PM
Academic Conference Room, 11/F Cheng Yu Tung Tower, The University of Hong Kong
There are rules that require persons to deliver goods to another across many areas of private law. Surprisingly, however, there is little consensus over what these rules require. The orthodoxy is that they require a ‘voluntary transfer of possession from one person to another’: s.61 Sale of Goods Act 1979. In his monograph, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, Dr Atmaz Al-Sibaie argues that the orthodoxy is incorrect and has led to error.
The better view is that delivery is used in different senses across different contexts. This was well appreciated ~150 years ago when Benjamin wrote the first edition of his treatise on the sale of goods but has now been forgotten. This presentation traces how this understanding of delivery has been lost over the last century and the mistakes that this has led to.
The argument made has wide-ranging implications for commercial and personal property law, and especially for the law of sale. In his presentation, Dr Atmaz Al-Sibaie will explore the implications for two areas of particular interest: (i) commodity sale-and-repurchase agreements; and (ii) the delivery of digital assets.
Dr Jonas Atmaz Al-Sibaie is Lecturer in Law at University College London. He was previously the Shaw Foundation Junior Research Fellow in Law at Jesus College, Oxford, and a stipendiary lecturer at St Hilda’s College, Oxford. Jonas’s research is primarily in property and commercial law, but extends to all aspects of private law. His forthcoming monograph with Oxford University Press, Delivery in Commercial Law, explores rules across private law which require a person to deliver some asset to another. His research has been published in leading generalist and specialist journals, including the Law Quarterly Review, Cambridge Law Journal, Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly, and Conveyancer and Property Law. Jonas is also the editor of two edited collections: Issues in the Law of Rescission (Oxford University Press) and Personal Property Law in the 21st Century (Hart Publishing, forthcoming).
Moderator: David Winterton, Associate Professor, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law