Request for a preliminary ruling from the Tribunalul Specializat Mureș (Romania) lodged on 21 March 2023 – ERB New Europe Funding II v YI

(Case C-178/23, ERB New Europe Funding II)

Language of the case: Romanian

Referring court

Tribunalul Specializat Mureș

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant for revision: ERB New Europe Funding II

Respondent: YI

Question referred

When applying the provisions of Article 7(1) of Directive 93/13/EEC, ¹ in the light of, in particular, the twenty-third recital of that directive and the principle of effectiveness, must those provisions be interpreted as not precluding the possibility for a national court to examine suspicions concerning the unfair nature of contractual terms stipulated in an agreement concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer, even when they have previously been examined by another national court in judicial proceedings at first instance at the request of the consumer, who did not attend the related hearing and was not properly assisted or represented by a lawyer, and have been rejected by a judicial decision which has never been challenged by the consumer – [and] which has, therefore, acquired, in the domestic procedural order, the force of res judicata – if, from the particular circumstances of the case, it appears, in a plausible and reasonable manner, that that consumer did not make use of the legal remedy in those first judicial proceedings because of his or her limited knowledge or information?

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