2022 Amendments to the UCC

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC) has unveiled its new amendments to the UCC on it website.  I am happy to report that the revisions to Articles 1, 2, and 2A seem to be quite modest.  Here are some that might matter to teaching:

• Conspicuousness is now to be determined by a totality of the circumstances, a highly sensible revision, especially since we now know that ALLCAPS are not helpful;
• The term "money" is now defined to exclude "an electronic record that is a medium of exchange recorded and transferable in a system that existed and operated for the medium of exchange before the medium of exchange was authorized or adopted by the government," which seems to cover cryptocurrencies but could also encompass broader technologies not yet in existence;

Shockingly, the ULC has not seen fit to change the Statute of Frauds threshold from the $500 amount that made sense when the UCC was drafted to something that makes sense today.  It is less shocking that the ULC did not see fit to eliminate the Statute of Frauds entirely, but its failure to do so remains disappointing.  

The most significant revision, it seems to me, from the perspective of teaching contracts and sales, is the following innovation in the realm of the predominant purpose test for hybrid transactions:

 

(2) In a hybrid transaction:

                        (a) If the sale-of-goods aspects do not predominate, only the provisions of this Article which relate primarily to the sale-of-goods aspects of the transaction apply, and the provisions that relate primarily to the transaction as a whole do not apply.

                        (b) If the sale-of-goods aspects predominate, this Article applies to the transaction but does not preclude application in appropriate circumstances of other law to aspects of the transaction which do not relate to the sale of goods.

            (3) This Article does not:

                        (a) apply to a transaction that, even though in the form of an unconditional contract to sell or present sale, operates only to create a security interest; or

                        (b) impair or repeal a statute regulating sales to consumers, farmers, or other specified classes of buyers. 

The revisions to Article 9 are more extensive.  Sucks to be people who teach Secured Transactions, but I've always thought that to be true.  The dramatic innovation of the revisions is a new Article 12 on Controllable Electronic Records.