Order of the Court (Sixth Chamber) of 16 January 2014 (request for a preliminary ruling from the Fővárosi Ítélőtábla - Hungary) — Ilona Baradics and Others v QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd Magyarországi Fióktelepe, Magyar Állam
(Case C-430/13) 1
(Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice — Package travel, package holidays and package tours — National legislation laying down minimum percentages for the security that a travel organiser must provide in order to refund, in the event of insolvency, money paid over by consumers)
Language of the case: Hungarian
Referring court
Fővárosi Ítélőtábla
Parties to the main proceedings
Appellants: Ilona Baradics, Adrienn Bóta, Éva Emberné Stál, Lászlóné György, Sándor Halász, Zita Harászi, Zsanett Hideg, Katalin Holtsuk, Gábor Jancsó, Mária Katona, Gergely Kézdi, László Korpás, Ferencné Kovács, Viola Kőrösi, Tamás Kuzsel, Attila Lajtai, Zsolt Lőrincz, Ákos Nagy, Attiláné Papp, Zsuzsanna Peller, Ágnes Petkovics, László Pongó, Zsolt Porpáczy, Zsuzsanna Rávai, László Román, Zsolt Schneck, Mihály Szabó, Péter Szabó, Zoltán Szalai, Erika Szemeréné Radó, Zsuzsanna Szigeti, Nikolett Szőke, Péter Tóth, Zsófia Várkonyi, Mónika Veress
Respondents: QBE Insurance (Europe) Ltd Magyarországi Fióktelepe, Magyar Állam
Re:
Request for a preliminary ruling — Fővárosi Ítélőtábla — Interpretation of Articles 7 and 9 of Council Directive 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours (OJ 1990 L 158, p. 59) — Travel contracts concluded with a travel organiser under which the consumers have made payments on account and, in certain cases, paid the travel price in full — Situation in which the travel organiser has become insolvent before those consumers began their trip — Compatibility with Directive 90/314 of national legislation laying down minimum percentages for the security that a travel organiser must provide in order to refund, in the event of insolvency, money paid over by consumers.
Operative part of the order
Article 7 of Council Directive 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours must be interpreted as precluding national legislation where the detailed rules laid down therein do not achieve the result of ensuring that the consumer is provided with an effective guarantee of the refund of all money paid over and repatriation in the event of insolvency on the part of the travel organiser. It is for the referring court to establish whether that is the case as regards the national legislation at issue in the dispute before it.
Article 7 of Directive 90/314 must be interpreted as meaning that a Member State has no discretion as regards the ambit of the risks that fall to be covered by the security to be provided by the travel organiser or retailer for the benefit of consumers. It is for the referring court to determine whether the criteria laid down by the Member State concerned for setting the amount of the security have the object or effect of limiting the ambit of the risks that fall to be covered by the security, in which case they would clearly be incompatible with the obligations under Directive 90/314 and would constitute a sufficiently serious infringement of EU law which, subject to a finding of a direct causal link, might give rise to liability on the part of the Member State concerned.
____________1 OJ C 344, 23.11.2013.