Source: http://recent-ecl.blogspot.com/2016/09/
Timestamp: 2017-08-16 14:54:59
Document Index: 36506792

Matched Legal Cases: ['CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'Art. 5', 'Art. 5', 'CJEU ', 'Art. 5', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ', 'CJEU ']

Recent developments in European Consumer Law: September 2016
Yesterday, Advocate General Kokott presented her opinion in yet another case on Spanish procedural law and the effective protection of consumers against unfair contract terms (Case C-503/15, Margarit Panicello). We have reported on this blog on earlier cases, most notably Banco Español de Crédito, Sánchez Morcillo and Finanmadrid.
The present case stands out, because of the explicit reference to Article 47 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights in the request for a preliminary ruling. The 'referring court' (one of the questions at issue is whether the Secretario Judicial - court registrar - can actually be regarded as a court or tribunal for the purposes of Article 267 TFEU) has asked the EU Court of Justice whether certain procedural rules are incompatible with Article 47, in that they preclude the possibility of judicial review. In Spain, there is a special procedure (jura de cuentas) available to lawyers for the recovery of unpaid fees that are owed to them by their clients. Unpaid fees could be a sign of a soured relationship, and lawyers would rather not litigate against their clients; for them, jura de cuentas is a preferably 'evitable' (avoidable) evil. AG Kokott's opinion makes clear why it might be an 'evitable' evil in light of EU law as well.
In the case of Finanmadrid, the referring court had made a similar reference to the Charter, but the CJEU avoided answering the question related to Article 47 (click here for some reflections on this case). In yesterday's opinion, AG Kokott explicitly adopts the reference to Article 47 of the Charter. And rightly so, because the procedural rules at issue do not only impede the (full) effectiveness of Directive 93/13/EEC, they may also constitute an intolerable interference with "the right to an effective remedy before a tribunal" enshrined in Article 47. As AG Kokott observes (para. 114), when provisions of national law fall within the scope of EU law, it must be assessed whether they are compatible with EU fundamental rights (click here for a further analysis of Case 617/10, Åkerberg Fransson). Moreover, the CJEU has held in Sánchez Morcillo (para. 35) that:
Posted by Anna van Duin at 16:15 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: charter, civil procedure, cjeu, consumer protection, judiciary, remedies, unfair commercial practices, unfair contract terms, unfair terms
Today, an interesting opinion by AG Michal Bobek has been published. It concerns more directly the field of e-banking, but also touches on a question of more general relevance to consumer law, namely when information can be said to have been "provided" to consumers and what constitutes a "durable medium" allowing prolonged accessibility of the information.
In the case under review, a bank was using its e-banking mailbox as a tool to communicate changes in its terms and conditions to its customers. The question before the court of justice boiled down to whether this practice complied with the Payment Services Directive (Directive 2007/64/EC), which requires information on contractual changes to be timely provided to consumers on a durable medium.
The AG starts with pointing out that, in his opinion, "providing" the information is a separate requirement than the "durable medium".
The "durable medium" requirement has been the object of some discussion; the AG concludes that the most reasonable understanding of this requirement- not only in the context of this directive- is that it does not entail that information should be provided on a physical or "hardware" support, but that only two main characteristics should be guaranteed:
1) accessibility for an appropriate amount of time;
2) unaltered "reproducibility", which entails both the possibility to store the information for the consumer and the impossibility for the service provider to alter the contents of said information.
According to Bobek, it will be difficult for internal mailboxes to fulfill these requirements on their own merits- in other words, the mailbox can hardly be the "support" or durable medium on which information is provided. However, they can more easily be a transmission mechanism for the transmission of information on a durable medium- such as, we understand, a PDF file.
On the other hand, even in case reasons would exist for the national court to consider the information as given on a durable medium, in itself the transmission via internal mailbox cannot be considered as "provision" of information. The information can, under the directive, only be considered to have been "made available" to the consumer.
Provision of information, according to the AG, can be said to have been accomplished if a further alert is sent to the consumer through an instrument that he would more easily have regular access to- such as a personal email address or home mail.
Although this seems to set the bar pretty high, the solution presented could still be seen as more lenient to service providers than the Court's precedent in Content Services, which had considered an email containing a link to a webpage not to represent "giving" of information under the Consumer Credit Directive (2008/48/EC). While the AG seems tempted to suggest that Content Services should be overturned or at least delimited, he mostly directs his efforts at distinguishing the two cases, by pointing out that the two directives (Payment Services and Consumer Credit) employ different language and also pursue different goals. Additionally, the AG observes that in a framework service contracts as the one at hand in the present case, the parties can agree that in general communication will take place via internal emails, thus in this case, once a consumer is alerted, "clicking several times or even typing a user name and passwords" are not actions which is unreasonable to require from a consumer to "receive" information sent to them (see para 82).
The opinion addresses several potentially contentious issues- which is confirmed by the fact that several governments (including the Italian and Polish governments) and the Commission intervened in the procedure.
PS On a side, the opinion also touches on the question of whether the right to be provided information (in a certain way) can be waived by means of consent to standard terms. In this case, the question is not addressed by means of the Unfair Terms Directive- however, the court case stemmed from an injunction by a consumer association which sought to prevent the bank's continued use of a term by which the consumers agreed to information concerning contractual changes being provided in the way discussed. The Commission claimed this was a valid term, the AG disagrees.
Posted by Candida Leone at 17:34 No comments: Links to this post
Labels: cjeu, content services, durable medium, duties to inform, e-banking, information, online payment services, online transactions
Posted by Candida Leone at 16:18 1 comment: Links to this post
Posted by J.A. (Joasia) Luzak at 11:52 1 comment: Links to this post
Computers sold exclusively with pre-installed software not unfair - CJEU in Deroo-Blanquart (C-310/15)
The CJEU is back from its holidays and today a first consumer law case has been resolved. Mr Deroo-Blanquart purchased a Sony laptop in France that, unsurprisingly, came with pre-installed Windows software and various applications. During the first use of the computer, more unusually, the consumer refused to sign the EULA (End-user licence agreement), displayed on the computer screen. Subsequently, and exceptionally, the consumer requested Sony to reimburse him for part of the purchase price of the laptop that would correspond to the cost of the pre-installed software, that he would never use. Sony claimed in return that the pre-installed software and the laptop 'form part of a single and non-separable offer', thus no discount was possible. Sony offered, however, to cancel the sale and to reimburse the consumer for the purchase price (549 Euro) upon return of the purchased laptop. While it might not have been a bad deal, it is likely that it would not satisfy the consumer since he would not easily be able to purchase a laptop without pre-installed software elsewhere. It doesn't come as a surprise then that Mr Deroo-Blanquart rejected this offer and started proceedings claiming payment of 450 Euro for the pre-installed software, as well as 2500 Euro damage suffered as a result of unfair commercial practices. His claims were dismissed by the district court and court of appeals, but the Cour de cassation decided to stay proceedings and turned to the CJEU with the following questions.
1. Is it a misleading commercial practice when a combined offer of sale of a computer with a pre-installed software does not specify the cost of each individual component, when listing each item of pre-installed software? (Art. 5 & 7 UCPD)
2. Is it an unfair commercial practice when a combined offer of sale of a computer with a pre-installed software leaves the consumer only two choices: to accept the software or to cancel (not engage in) the whole sale? (Art. 5 UCPD)
3. Is it an unfair commercial practice when a manufacturer offers only combined offers of sale of a computer with a pre-installed software, without allowing consumers to obtain a computer which is not equipped with pre-installed software?
The CJEU considered the last two questions together and came to the conclusion that on its own it is not an unfair commercial practice pursuant to Art. 5 UCPD if the manufacturer offers for sale a computer with a pre-installed software without any option for the consumer to purchase the same computer model without this software. However, it is for the national court to decide whether this practice was also pursuant to the requirements of professional diligence and did not materially distort or was likely to distort the economic behaviour of the average consumer with regard to the product.
As combined offers are not included in the list of prohibited commercial practices that is included in the Annex to the UCPD, unfairness of such practices could only be evaluated on the basis of general clauses. The requirements for unfairness are thus that the practice has to be contrary to professional diligence and materially distort average consumer's behaviour. While the CJEU leaves it to the national court to assert whether these requirements have been met, it states that:
"it is clear from the order for reference that, inter alia, the sale by Sony of computers with pre-installed software meets the expectations, as revealed by an analysis of the market concerned, of a significant proportion of consumers who prefer to purchase a computer already equipped and ready for immediate use, rather than to purchase a computer and software separately. Moreover, as is also apparent from the order for reference, prior to the purchase of the computer at issue in the main proceedings, Mr Deroo-Blanquart, as a consumer, was duly informed via Sony’s retailer of the existence of pre-installed software on that computer and the specific nature of each of those items of software. Finally, subsequent to the purchase, when using that computer for the first time, Sony offered Mr Deroo-Blanquart the possibility of either subscribing to the ‘end-user licence agreement’ in order to be able to use that software or cancelling the sale." (Par. 35)
Providing consumers with correct information on combined offers is perceived by the CJEU as satisfying the conditions of fairness (Par. 36). Moreover, since the consumer was offered a possibility to cancel the sale, it suggests that the commercial practice was an honest market practice, "the trader thereby demonstrating care towards the consumer". (Par. 37) The CJEU also hints at the commercial practice being unlikely to materially distort consumer's behaviour, as "the consumer has been duly informed, prior to the purchase, that the model of computer that is the subject matter of the sale was not marketed without pre-installed software and that he was therefore, in principle, free to choose another model of computer, or another brand, with similar technical specifications, sold without software or used with different software...". (Par. 41)
The CJEU also doesn't consider the lack of indication of individual prices of each software item as a misleading commercial practice. While the lack of overall price indication would constitute a misleading omission, as material information for the consumer would not be disclosed, the same reasoning does not apply to the components of this overall price. Especially, since the computer is not sold without the pre-installed software, the CJEU considered that it would not impact consumer's transactional decision-making, if he had price information on all individual software applications (Par. 48-51).
Generally, based on past case law, we could not expect the CJEU to consider combined offers to be unfair commercial practices under all circumstances. However, the CJEU seems to give very detailed guidance to national courts in this case, directing them to consider the combined offer under the given circumstances as a fair commercial practice. While an informed consumer has definitely more capability to assess the value of the transaction he is entering into, that does not necessarily give him as much market power as the trader has and may not prevent an unfair commercial practice from occurring. The Court mentions that this consumer could have decided to purchase a different computer, of a different brand, e.g., instead. This presumes the existence of certain market conditions, consumer's familiarity with them, as well as consumer's sharpness in exploitation of these. Is this the continuity of the average consumer's high benchmark or has it just been raised even higher?
Posted by J.A. (Joasia) Luzak at 15:24 1 comment: Links to this post
Labels: apps and non-embedded software, cjeu, digital consumers, information needs, unfair commercial practices