Case C-118/17: Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 14 March 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Budai Központi Kerületi Bíróság — Hungary) — Zsuzsanna Dunai v ERSTE Bank Hungary Zrt (Reference for a preliminary ruling — Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13/EEC — Article 1(2) — Article 6(1) — Loan contract denominated in a foreign currency — Exchange difference — Substitution of a legislative provision for an unfair term declared void — Exchange rate risk — Continued existence of the contract after the unfair term has been deleted — National system for a uniform interpretation of law)
Date: 2019-03-14
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: consumer credit, consumer protection, exchange rate, interpretation of the law, right to justice, unfair terms of contract








C_2019155EN.01000201.xml










6.5.2019   


EN


Official Journal of the European Union


C 155/2






Judgment of the Court (Third Chamber) of 14 March 2019 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Budai Központi Kerületi Bíróság — Hungary) — Zsuzsanna Dunai v ERSTE Bank Hungary Zrt
(Case C-118/17) (1)

(Reference for a preliminary ruling - Consumer protection - Unfair terms in consumer contracts - Directive 93/13/EEC - Article 1(2) - Article 6(1) - Loan contract denominated in a foreign currency - Exchange difference - Substitution of a legislative provision for an unfair term declared void - Exchange rate risk - Continued existence of the contract after the unfair term has been deleted - National system for a uniform interpretation of law)
(2019/C 155/02)
Language of the case: Hungarian

Referring court

Budai Központi Kerületi Bíróság

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant: Zsuzsanna Dunai

Defendant: ERSTE Bank Hungary Zrt

Operative part of the judgment







1.


Article 6(1) of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as meaning that:






—


it does not preclude national legislation which prevents the court seised of the case from granting an application for the cancellation of a loan contract on the basis of the unfair nature of a term relating to the exchange difference, such as that at issue in the main proceedings, provided that a finding that terms in such an agreement were unfair would restore the legal and factual situation that the consumer would have been in had that unfair term not existed; and










—


it precludes national legislation which prevents, in circumstances such as those at issue in the main proceedings, the court seised of the case from granting an application for the cancellation of a loan contract on the basis of the unfair nature of a term relating to exchange rate risk where it is found that that term is unfair and that the contract cannot continue to exist without that term.














2.


Directive 93/13, read in the light of Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, does not preclude a supreme court of a Member State from adopting, in the interest of ensuring uniform interpretation of the law, binding decisions concerning the modalities for implementing that directive, in so far as those decisions do not prevent the competent court from ensuring the full effect of the norms laid down in that directive and from offering consumers an effective remedy for the protection of the rights that they can derive therefrom, or from referring a question for a preliminary ruling to the Court in that regard, which it is for the referring court to determine.






(1)  OJ C 221, 10.7.2017.