Case C-672/25, Agentsia za sabirane na vzemania: Request for a preliminary ruling from the Sofiyski rayonen sad (Bulgaria) lodged on 16 October 2025 – Agentsia za sabirane na vzemania EAD
Date: 2025-10-16
Institutions: Court of Justice
Subjects: appeal, case-law (EU), consumer credit, consumer protection, higher court, judicial review, unfair terms of contract








C_202600287EN.000101.fmx.xml












Official Journal of the European Union


EN
C series













C/2026/287


26.1.2026






Request for a preliminary ruling from the Sofiyski rayonen sad (Bulgaria) lodged on 16 October 2025 – ‘Agentsia za sabirane na vzemania’ EAD


(Case C-672/25, Agentsia za sabirane na vzemania)

(C/2026/287)
Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Sofiyski rayonen sad

Parties to the main proceedings


Applicant in the order for payment proceedings:
            ‘Agentsia za sabirane na vzemania’ EAD

Questions referred







1


Must the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Articles 38 and 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and, where appropriate, Article 7 of Directive 93/13/EEC, (1) be interpreted as
precluding national legislation and case-law which requires an adjudicating body to decide a case pending before it in line with instructions given by an adjudicating body of a higher court to the detriment of a consumer and in breach of the obligation to examine of its own motion whether there are unfair terms in a consumer agreement, without the court of first instance being accorded any discretion as to the merits, even where those instructions are issued without an exhaustive statement of reasons as to why the assessment by the court of first instance regarding the application of EU law was incorrect?










2


Must the first paragraph of Article 267 TFEU, read in conjunction with the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights and the principle of primacy of EU law, in accordance with the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union set out in the judgment of 15 July 1964, Costa v ENEL, 6/64, (2) be interpreted as
precluding national case-law under which interpretative decisions of the European Union delivered in the context of preliminary ruling proceedings are binding only when certain judicial decisions are being adopted which, according to the national courts, do not constitute ‘[purely] factual acts’, and such interpretative decisions are not to apply to judicial decisions that are ‘[purely] factual acts’? If such case-law is permissible, is there a criterion in EU law for determining which acts of the court are ‘factual’?










3


Must the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU, read in conjunction with Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, together with the principle of effectiveness of EU law and the interpretation set out in point 2 of the operative part of the order made by the Court of Justice on 6 February [2024] in Case C-425/23, (3)
City Cash and Others, be interpreted as meaning that
the concept of ‘
                     res judicata
                     ’ has a minimum content, determined by autonomous interpretation of EU law, and that that content requires that the judicial decision which has the force of res judicata:






(a)


must relate to the existence and exercise of a substantive right of one of the parties to the proceedings and must be addressed to that party, or










(b)


the party concerned must have had the opportunity to raise its objections to such a decision before a court?














4


Must the second subparagraph of Article 19(1) TEU be interpreted as
requiring that, where a national court, in the grounds for its decision, has relied on a procedural power that has been affirmed in the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, the higher [national] court must, if it considers the exercise of that power to be unlawful, give explicit reasons for its conclusion that the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union does not apply? Does such an obligation exist only in respect of certain rights or rules provided for by EU law?






(1)  Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts (OJ 1993 L 95, p. 29).

(2)  ECLI:EU:C:1964:66.

(3)  ECLI:EU:C:2024:112.


ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/C/2026/287/oj
ISSN 1977-091X (electronic edition)