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ฉบับพิเศษ ประจำ�ปี 2564

such as the Car in the present case,” if the law of the place of registration in a country
other than the importing country, where the car physically exists, is chosen as

the applicable law, “it would not be easy for those who participate in the transaction to
understand which law is the applicable law at the time of the transaction.” Due to

the consideration, the Supreme Court refused to choose German Law as applicable,
even though an ownership registration was still in existence there, albeit formally from
the Supreme Court’s viewpoint.

A registration existing in a country can provide the legal basis of market for

a transaction. However, it is implicitly suggested by the Supreme Court that a more
crucial point is the choice of and reliance of parties on a registration in a market where
they can then carry out their transaction.

As the Supreme Court adopted the criterion of the place of primary use for one
of the two categories of cars, it considered the difficulties in terms of the “legal

transparency for” the purchaser and “the safety of trading,” caused by the choice-of-law
based on the place “where the car physically happened to be.” This consideration could
mean that there is one kind of transaction which is dealt with, regardless of the physical

place at the time of the transaction, but which is based on a legal market order.
This virtual connection with a market for a transaction might be attempted, albeit in

an unclear manner, to indicate with the term of the place of the primary use in
the Supreme Court’s judgment.

In the following section of the reasoning of the judgment, similar consideration
was also shown for sustaining the principle of lex loci rei sitae in the second of the two

categories of automobiles.

“On the other hand, when cars are traded across the border, new cars are often
distributed before registration, and second-hand cars are distributed in the state
where the previous registration has been deleted, and thus in both cases, they

are distributed in the state in which the cars are not ready for use”.
“… regarding cars which are traded in a state not ready to be placed in use,
there is no place of primary use, and the acquisition or loss of the rights have

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