Business Contracts

Article 1915 of the Civil Code defines a bailment (dépôt) as “an act by which one receives something from another, with the obligation to keep it and return it in kind”. According to this definition, the bailment agreement is characterized by three combined elements: the delivery of a thing, the obligation to keep it, and the obligation to return it. Thus, according to the Court of Cassation, the  …

Bailment agreement (contrat de dépôt)

Article 1915 of the Civil Code defines a bailment (dépôt) as “an act by which one receives something from another, with the obligation to keep it and return it in kind”. According to this definition, the bailment agreement is characterized by three combined elements: the delivery of a thing, the obligation to keep it, and the obligation to return it. Thus, according to the Court of Cassation, the mere fact that an agent receives funds on behalf of his principal is not sufficient to transform the agency agreement into a bailment agreement .

By contrast with the agency agreement, which constitutes a contract for the provision of services insofar as the agent is bound by an obligation to perform a legal act, the bailment agreement, a contract involving the delivery of a thing, can only relate to movable property, in accordance with Article 1918 of the Civil Code. Although the distinction between these two concepts may seem straightforward, there are situations where agency and bailment meet, or even merge.

Once the thing has been handed over, the person depositing it has an obligation to “conserve” it. Article 1927 of the Civil Code stipulates that the depositary must take the same care in keeping the thing deposited as he does in keeping the things he possesses himself. Conservation can be defined as a material or legal transaction designed to safeguard the thing . In this sense, the bailment agreement can be likened to the agency agreement, since under both agreements, legal acts can be concluded on behalf of the other party. In effect, in an agency agreement, the agent performs legal acts on behalf of and in the name of the principal, whereas in a bailment agreement, the custodian may be required to perform legal acts for the purpose of preserving the object of the bailment. In the case of fuel distribution carried out under an agency agreement, the Court of Cassation has ruled that the fact that a service station operator retains the proceeds of customer sales until they are paid daily into a bank account designated by the oil company does not, unless otherwise stipulated, constitute a bailment agreement within the agency agreement, but rather the actual performance of the latter .

Finally, in some cases, the bailment may be followed by an agency agreement to sell. This is the situation of the consignment sale (dépôt-vente), in which the consignor, a manufacturer, places an item in the hands of the consignee, a merchant, with the latter being responsible for selling it on behalf of the former .

Cass. Com. 1 June 1993, LawLex202200001733JBJ.

Vocabulaire juridique, CORNU, Association Henri CAPITANT, 14th updated edition.

Cass. com, 1 June 1993, LawLex202200001733JBJ.

Cass. com, 30 May 2007, LawLex202200010566JBJ.

Business Contracts

467. Bailment agreement (contrat de dépôt)

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467. Bailment agreement (contrat de dépôt)

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Les décisions de justice citées dans ce paragraphe :

Les notions juridiques connexes

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