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Document 62020CO0321
Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 4 February 2021.
CDT, SA v MIMR and HRMM.
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court – Consumer protection – Temporal effects of a judgment – Directive 93/13/EEC – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Powers of the national court when dealing with a term regarded as ‘unfair’ – Accelerated repayment term – Partial removal of the content of an unfair term – Principle of legal certainty – Obligation to interpret in conformity with EU law.
Case C-321/20.
Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 4 February 2021.
CDT, SA v MIMR and HRMM.
Reference for a preliminary ruling – Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court – Consumer protection – Temporal effects of a judgment – Directive 93/13/EEC – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Powers of the national court when dealing with a term regarded as ‘unfair’ – Accelerated repayment term – Partial removal of the content of an unfair term – Principle of legal certainty – Obligation to interpret in conformity with EU law.
Case C-321/20.
ECLI identifier: ECLI:EU:C:2021:98
Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 4 February 2021 – CDT
(Case C‑321/20) ( 1 )
(Reference for a preliminary ruling – Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court – Consumer protection – Temporal effects of a judgment – Directive 93/13/EEC – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Powers of the national court when dealing with a term regarded as ‘unfair’ – Accelerated repayment term – Partial removal of the content of an unfair term – Principle of legal certainty – Obligation to interpret in conformity with EU law)
1. |
Questions referred for a preliminary ruling – Questions the answer to which may be clearly deduced from the Court’s existing case-law – Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice (Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Art. 99) (see para. 21) |
2. |
Questions referred for a preliminary ruling – Interpretation – Temporal effects of judgments by way of interpretation – Retroactive effect (Art. 267 TFEU) (see para. 24) |
3. |
Acts of the institutions – Directives – Implementation by Member States – Need to ensure that directives are effective – Obligations of national courts – Obligation of conforming interpretation – Scope – Interpretation of national law contra legem – Precluded (Arts 4(3) TEU and Art. 288 TFEU) (see paras 27-29) |
4. |
Consumer protection – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Directive 93/13 – Finding that a term is unfair – Scope – National legislation allowing a national court which finds that an unfair term is void to revise its content – Judgment of the Court in which it finds that that legislation is incompatible with Directive 93/13 – Legislation which has not yet been amended when the contract was concluded – Inapplicability of that provision for the national court – Whether permissible – Breach of the principle of legal certainty – Absence – Obligation on the national court to verify conforming interpretation (Council Directive 93/13, Art. 6(1)) (see paras 30-33, operative part 1) |
5. |
Consumer protection – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Directive 93/13 – Finding that a term is unfair – Scope – National legislation allowing a national court which finds that an unfair term is void to revise its content – Not permissible (Council Directive 93/13, Art. 6(1)) (see paras 36, 40, 41) |
6. |
Consumer protection – Unfair terms in consumer contracts – Directive 93/13 – Declaration that a clause is unfair in part – Scope – Maintaining the part of the term that is not unfair, entailing an amendment of its content – Not permissible – Replacement of an unfair term with a provision of national law by the national court – Whether permissible – Conditions (Council Directive 93/13, Arts 6 and 7) (see paras 42-46, and operative part 2) |
Operative part
1. |
EU law, in particular the principle of legal certainty, must be interpreted as not precluding the national court from refraining from applying a provision of national law enabling it to review an unfair term of a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer in a situation in which that provision, which was held to be contrary to Article 6(1) of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts by judgment of 14 June 2012, Banco Español de Crédito (C‑618/10, EU: C:2012:349), had not yet been the subject of a legislative amendment, in accordance with that judgment, at the time of the conclusion of that contract. |
2. |
The principle of legal certainty must be interpreted as meaning that it does not allow a national court which has found that a contractual term is unfair within the meaning of Article 3 of Directive 93/13 to review the content of that term, with the result that that court is required to disapply it. However, Articles 6 and 7 of that directive do not preclude the national court from substituting a supplementary provision of national law for such a term, provided that the loan agreement in question cannot survive if the unfair term is removed and that the annulment of the agreement as a whole would expose the consumer to particularly unfavourable consequences, which is a matter for the national court to determine. |
( 1 ) OJ C 359, 26.10.2020.