Intangibles, services not part of goods- Atakora and Attakora
‘goods’ means moveable property of every description, and includes growing crops or plants and other things attached to or forming part of the land which are agreed to be severed before sale by or under the contract of sale.
Private legal practitioners and authors of ‘Atakora and Attakora on Sale of Goods’ Jude Atakora Tufuor and Kweku Attakora Dwomoh have settled the controversy relative to the position of intangibles and services relative to the Sale of Goods Act, 1962(Act 137).
According to them, intangibles and services like that of lawyers, are not captured or classified as goods because they fall short of the qualities, attributes, and specifications attached to goods.
Speaking on the Law program on Sunday, Jude, a lecturer at Central University, noted, “This is a question that usually comes up whether intangibles are goods and my question is no, and the reason I say no is that, if you read the law, especially under Section 81, it is very clear as to what the definition of goods are.”
Goods are every item of moveable description”
According to Section 81 of the Sale of Goods Act, 1962(Act 137),
‘goods’ means moveable property of every description, and includes growing crops or plants and other things attached to or forming part of the land which are agreed to be severed before sale by or under the contract of sale.
Therefore according to him, the expression moveable description refers to items that can be moved from place to place and items fixed to the ground and can be the subject of harvest.
However, Jude indicated that in other jurisdictions like India, their Sale of goods Act of 1930 has shown in action like the transfer of shares, and the transfer of stocks as part of goods.
On his part, Kweku Attakora Dwomoh who lectures at the UPSA law school indicated that goodwill cannot be classified as good per the case of Halaby and Wiredu where there was an issue with the sale of goodwill.
Further, he noted that there has been a tall discussion in the UK on whether services are goods in law and indicated per case laws the decision of courts that have established that services do not amount to goods unless the service is to lead to an end product of the production of goods.
What area of Law regulate these intangibles?
On this, Jude said that in the case of shares, the Companies Act covers it and Software applications regulated by the IP Rights.
And for Kweku, anyone who is dissatisfied with services, especially of his/her lawyer, has a redress per the Legal Professions Act but not under the Sale of Goods Act.
