Rossen Stoyanchev commented

These are actually intentionally different exceptions. @ModelAttribute, which is assumed by default if no other annotation is present, goes through data binding and validation, and raises BindException to indicate a failure with binding request properties or validating the resulting values. @RequestBody, on the other hand converts the body of the request via HttpMessageConverter, validates it and raises various conversion related exceptions or a MethodArgumentNotValidexception if validation fails. In most cases a MethodArgumentNotValidException can be handled generically (e.g. via @ExceptionHandler method) while BindException is very often handled individually in each controller method.