United States law The law of the United States comprises many levels of Codification (law), codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the supreme law is the nation's Constitution of the United States, Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the ...

, the ordinary course of business (OCB) covers the usual transactions, customs and practices of a certain business and of a certain firm. This term is used particularly to judge the validity of certain transactions. It is used in several different sections of the

Uniform Commercial Code The Uniform Commercial Code (UCC), first published in 1952, is one of a number of uniform acts that have been established as law with the goal of harmonizing the laws of sales and other commercial transactions across the United States through U ...

of the United States.
Section 1-201 of the Uniform Commercial Code
defines a "Buyer in the ordinary course of business" by a four-part test: # a person that buys goods in

good faith In human interactions, good faith () is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case with , which i ...

, # without knowledge that the sale violates the rights of another person in the goods /nowiki>e.g. a security interest">security_interest.html" ;"title="/nowiki>e.g. a security interest">/nowiki>e.g. a security interest/nowiki>, # and in the ordinary course from a person, other than a pawnbroker, in the business of selling goods of that kind. # A person buys goods in the ordinary course if the sale to the person comports with the usual or customary practices in the kind of business in which the seller is engaged or with the seller's own usual or customary practices. : /nowiki>emphasis added/nowiki>. There are also references to persons acting "in the ordinary course of business" (or "customary course of business") in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

Factors Act 1889 The Factors Act 1889 ( 52 & 53 Vict. c. 45) was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that consolidated several earlier enactments related to factors in the United Kingdom. Passage The Factors Bill had its first reading in the Hou ...

, which defines a mercantile agent or factor as "a person who, in the customary course of his business as an agent, had authority from another person to sell, consign or buy goods, or to raise money on the security of goods" and defines a "document of title" to include "a

bill of lading A bill of lading () (sometimes abbreviated as B/L or BOL) is a document issued by a common carrier, carrier (or their Law of agency, agent) to acknowledge receipt of cargo for shipment. Although the term is historically related only to Contract of ...

and any other document used in the ordinary course of business to prove possession or control of goods". Lord Alverstone noted in the case of ''Oppenheimer v Attenborough & Son'' ( 9081 K.B. 221) that "acting in the ordinary course of business of a mercantile agent" means that "the person must act in the transaction as a mercantile agent would act if he were carrying out a transaction which he was authorised by his master to carry out".Parker, C. F.
Mercantile Agents and the Single Transaction
''The Modern Law Review'', Vol. 15, No. 4 (October 1952), pp. 503-508, accessed on 31 December 2024

References

American legal terminology Business law {{Law-term-stub