Order of the Court (First Chamber) of 3 July 2019 — Bankia

(Case C‑92/16) ( 1 )

(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Consumer protection — Directive 93/13/EEC — Articles 6 and 7 — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Accelerated repayment clause of a mortgage loan contract — Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice — Question identical to a question on which the Court has already ruled or where the reply to such a question may be clearly deduced from existing case-law — Declaration that the clause is unfair in part — Powers of the national court when dealing with a term regarded as ‘unfair’ — Replacement of the unfair term with a provision of national law — Article 53(2) of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice — Question manifestly inadmissible)

1. Questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Admissibility — Questions referred lacking sufficient information regarding the factual and legislative context and the reasons justifying the need for an answer to the questions referred for a preliminary ruling — Questions submitted in a context which precludes a useful answer — Manifest inadmissibility (Art. 267 TFEU; Statute of the Court of Justice, Art. 23; Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice, Arts 53(2) and 94) (see paras 30-38)

2. Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Aim (Council Directive 93/13) (see para. 40)

3. Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Unfair term within the meaning of Article 3 — Assessment of unfair nature by the national court — Criteria (Council Directive 93/13, Recital 16 and Arts 3(1) and 5) (see para. 41)

4. Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Finding that a term is unfair — Scope — National legislation enabling the national court which finds that an unfair term is invalid to revise its content — Not permissible (Council Directive 93/13, Art. 6(1)) (see paras 44, 45)

5. Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Finding that a term is unfair — Scope — National legislation enabling the national court which finds that an unfair term is invalid to substitute for it a supplementary provision of national law — Whether permissible (Council Directive 93/13, Art. 6(1)) (see paras 46-48)

6. Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Finding that a term is unfair in part — Scope — Maintaining in force 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 49-54, operative part)

Operative part

Articles 6 and 7 of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as, first, precluding an accelerated repayment clause of a mortgage loan contract, which has been found to be unfair, from being maintained in part by the national court removing the elements which make it unfair. By contrast, those articles do not preclude the national court from compensating for the invalidity of such an unfair term, the wording of which is based on a legislative provision applicable where the parties to the contract so agree, by replacing that term with the new wording of that legislative provision introduced after the contract was concluded, where the contract in question cannot continue in existence if that unfair term is removed and the annulment of that contract in its entirety exposes the consumer to particularly unfavourable consequences.

( 1 ) OJ C 156, 2.5.2016.