Višje sodišče v Ljubljani; 2017-01-25; I Cp 2164/2016
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:SI:VSLJ:2017:I.CP.2164.2016
Date: 2017-01-25
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: Slovenia

82017SI0125(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
This case regards a dispute over the nullity of a credit contract brought by a natural person domiciled in Slovenia (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) against a company domiciled in Slovenia (hereinafter ‘the defendant’). The defendant was sued as the transferee of the original creditor, which was a company domiciled in the Czech Republic.
The Okrajno sodišče v Ljubljani (hereinafter ‘the Court of First Instance’) dismissed the objection of the defendant alleging the lack of jurisdiction of the Slovenian courts and held the credit agreement to be null and void. The defendant, putting forward several pleas, appealed to the Višje sodišče v Ljubljani (hereinafter ‘the Court of Appeal’).
The defendant claimed that the decision was passed in its absence since the Court of First Instance ignored references to the health issues of the defendant’s director. This plea was held unfounded, since the conditions for the postponement of the proceedings due to health problems are clearly provided by law and they were not fulfilled by the defendant, thus the judgement in absence was justified.
The defendant alleged that the credit contract contained an agreement concerning jurisdiction in favour of the Czech courts. The Court of Appeal confirmed the first instance conclusion that the agreement on jurisdiction contained in the credit contract was not valid. It cited Articles 18 and 19 of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1) which provide that the provisions of this Regulation in consumer contracts may be departed from by an agreement only under specific conditions, none of which were fulfilled in the present case. Furthermore, on the basis of Article 6 of the Rome I Regulation (2), contracts such as the one in this dispute shall be governed by the law of the country where the consumer has his habitual residence. Although the Court of First Instance erroneously referred to national legislation instead of European legislation, the conclusions are the same as the provisions in this matter are very similar on both the national and European levels.
It was also held correct that the credit contract should be classified as a consumer contract. There was no reference in the contract that it was for business purposes, conversely, the credit contract explicitly stated that the relations between the parties shall be governed by national law covering consumer contracts. The legal capacity to be a defendant was also held correctly ascertained with regards to the defendant as trustee of the original creditor, since the plaintiff retains the same rights against the transferee as it had against the creditor. The amount of credit provided to the plaintiff was also proved to be the one claimed by the plaintiff and confirmed by the Court of First Instance (EUR 1800) and not the one alleged by the defendant (EUR 2000).
All grounds for appeal were dismissed as unfounded and the first instance conclusions were upheld.
(1) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters.
(2) Regulation (EC) No 593/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 June 2008 on the law applicable to contractual obligations (Rome I).