Terms of seller’s liability for the sale of a false cultural object
This study includes analysis of the terms of a seller’s liability for the sale of a false cultural object or monument. In the introductory part, attention was paid to the phenomenon of forging cultural objects with a view to marketing counterfeits, which, in reference to monuments, constitutes the offense of forgery threatened by fine, restriction of liberty or imprisonment up to 2 years (Art. 109a of the Act of 23.07.2003 on the protection and care of monuments, Dz. U. No. 162, item 1568, as amended). Further in the study, attention was drawn to the fact that for the determination of terms of civil law liability of a seller – including sellers of forged cultural objects – key importance attaches to the differentiation between defective performance, which triggers liability under statutory warranty, and provision of another object, which does not amount to performance of an obligation at all. Emphasis was put on the importance of the opinion that the decisive factor for the determination of the seller’s liability regime in case of provision of an object other than agreed is the act of acceptance of performance. The considerations were made from the perspective of interests of a forged cultural object’s buyer. As a result, it was indicated that for the buyer the optimal solution is to exercise, in the first place, the right to withdraw from the sale contract under the provisions on statutory warranty and, only where this is impossible, to invoke the construction of error, as defined in Art. 84 of the Civil Code.