Order — ECLI:EU:C:2011:443
Date: 2011-06-30
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: First Chamber
Subject matter: Consumer protection;Approximation of laws
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary of the Order Approximation of laws – Unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices – Directive 2005/29 (European Parliament and Council Directive 2005/29) Directive 2005/29 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market must be interpreted as precluding a national provision which provides for a general prohibition of announcements of price reductions or announcements suggesting such reductions during the period preceding sales, in so far as the provision pursues objectives relating to consumer protection and therefore falls well within the scope of that directive, which is for the national court to determine. Since Directive 2005/29 fully harmonises the rules relating to unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices, Member States may not adopt stricter rules than those provided for in the directive, as expressly provided for in Article 4 thereof, even in order to achieve a higher level of consumer protection. The same directive establishes, in its Annex I, an exhaustive list of 31 commercial practices which, in accordance with Article 5(5) of that directive, are regarded as unfair ‘in all circumstances’. Consequently, as recital 17 in the preamble to that directive expressly states, only those commercial practices can be deemed to be unfair without a case-by-case assessment against the provisions of Articles 5 to 9 of that directive. However, the practices of announcing price reductions to consumers do not appear in Annex I to Directive 2005/29. Therefore, they cannot be prohibited in all circumstances, but can be prohibited only following a specific assessment allowing the unfairness of those practices to be established. (see paras 28, 33, 37-38, 40, operative part)