Judgment — ECLI:EU:C:2013:498
Date: 2013-07-18
Language of the case: Dutch
Court formation: First Chamber
Subject matter: Consumer protection;Approximation of laws;Freedom to provide services
Procedure: Reference for a preliminary ruling
Origin: Belgium

Summary — Judgment of the Court (First Chamber), 18 July 2013 1. Approximation of laws — Unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices — Directive 2005/29 — Scope — Combined offers including at least one financial service — Included (European Parliament and Council Directive 2005/29, Art. 2(d)) 2. Approximation of laws — Unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices — Directive 2005/29 — Objective of full harmonisation of national laws — Limits — Financial services, including combined offers — Power of the Member States to impose stricter requirements than those provided for in the Directive (European Parliament and Council Directive 2005/29, Arts 3(9) and 4) 3. Approximation of laws — Unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices — Directive 2005/29 – Financial services — National legislation prohibiting, with some exceptions, any combined offers made to consumers — Lawfulness (European Parliament and Council Directive 2005/29, Recital 9 and Art. 3(9)) 4. Freedom to provide services — National legislation prohibiting, with some exceptions, any combined offers made to consumers — Unlawful — Restrictions justified in the public interest — Consumer protection — Condition — Proportionality of such legislation (Art. 56 TFEU) 1. See the text of the decision. (see paras 17-19) 2. See the text of the decision. (see paras 20-26) 3. Article 3(9) of Directive 2005/29 concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market and amending Council Directive 84/450, Directives 97/7, 98/27 and 2002/65 and Regulation No 2006/2004 must be interpreted as not precluding a national provision whose objective is to protect the interests of consumers which lays down a general prohibition — save in the cases exhaustively listed by the national legislation — of combined offers made to consumers where at least one of the components of those offers is a financial service. Recital 9 in the preamble to Directive 2005/29 makes express reference to the intention of allowing Member States the right to adopt more stringent measures in relation to financial services in order to ensure a high level of consumer protection. The intention of the EU legislature is therefore to leave it to the Member States themselves to assess how restrictive they wish to make those measures and to allow them freedom of action in that connection, enabling them to go so far as to prohibit those offers. (see paras 27, 28, 38, operative part) 4. Article 56 TFEU must be interpreted as not precluding a national provision whose objective is to protect the interests of consumers which lays down a general prohibition — save in the cases exhaustively listed by the national legislation — of combined offers to consumers where at least one of the components of those offers is a financial service. That approach is justified by the fact that the objective of that national legislation is to protect the interests of consumers and that the protection of consumers is recognised as an overriding reason of public interest, capable of justifying a restriction on the freedom to provide services. As regards the proportionality of such a restriction, the existence of exceptions to the general prohibition indicates that the national legislature in question took the view that, in certain cases, it is not necessary to provide the consumer with additional protection. (see paras 38, 41, 43, operative part)