UCC Articles

The 1952 Uniform Commercial Code was released after ten years of development, and revisions were made to the Code from 1952 to 1999.^[1] The Uniform Commercial Code deals with the following subjects under consecutively numbered Articles:

ART.	TITLE	CONTENTS
1	General Provisions	Definitions, rules of interpretation
2	Sales	Sales of goods
2A	Leases	Leases of goods
3	Negotiable Instruments	Promissory notes and drafts (commercial paper)
4	Bank Deposits	Banks and banking, check collection process
4A	Funds Transfers	Transfers of money between banks
5	Letters of Credit	Transactions involving letters of credit
6	Bulk Transfers and Bulk Sales	Auctions and liquidations of assets
7	Warehouse Receipts, Bills of Lading and Other Documents of Title	Storage and bailment of goods
8	Investment Securities	Securities and financial assets
9	Secured Transactions	Transactions secured by security interests

In 2003, a major revision of Article 2 modernizing many aspects (as well as changes to Article 2A and Article 7) was proposed by the NCCUSL and the ALI. Although being considered, there are no states that have yet adopted the revised version of Article 2.

In 1989, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws recommended that Article 6 of the UCC, dealing with bulk sales, be repealed as obsolete. It remains in force in several jurisdictions.

A major revision of Article 9, dealing primarily with transactions in which personal property is used as security for a loan or extension of credit, was enacted in many states with an effective date of July 1, 2001.^[4]

The controversy surrounding with what is now termed the Uniform Computer Information Transactions Act (UCITA) originated in the process of revising Article 2 of the UCC. The provisions of what is now UCITA were originally meant to be "Article 2B" within a revised Article 2 on Sales. As the UCC is the only uniform law that is a joint project of NCCUSL and the ALI, both associations must agree to any revision of the UCC (i.e., the model act; revisions to the law of a particular state only require enactment in that state). The proposed final draft of Article 2B met with controversy within the ALI, and as a consequence the ALI did not grant its assent. The NCCUSL responded by renaming Article 2B and promulgating it as the UCITA. As of October 12, 2004, only Maryland and Virginia have adopted UCITA.

The overriding philosophy of the Uniform Commercial Code is to allow people to make the contracts they want, but to fill in any missing provisions where the agreements they make are silent. The law also seeks to impose uniformity and streamlining of routine transactions like the processing of checks, notes, and other routine commercial paper. The law frequently distinguishes between merchants, who customarily deal in a commodity and are presumed to know well the business they are in, and consumers, who are not.

The UCC also seeks to discourage the use of legal formalities in making business contracts, in order to allow business to move forward without the intervention of lawyers or the preparation of elaborate documents. This last point is perhaps the most questionable part of its underlying philosophy; many^[who?] in the legal profession have argued that legal formalities discourage litigation by requiring some kind of ritual that provides a clear dividing line that tells people when they have made a final deal over which they could be sued.