Order of the Court (Seventh Chamber) of 8 November 2018 — VE
(Case C‑227/18) (1)
(Reference for a preliminary ruling — Article 53(2) and Article 99 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court of Justice — Consumer protection — Directive 93/13/EEC — Unfair terms in credit agreements entered into with consumers and which are denominated in a foreign currency — Term relating to foreign exchange risk — Requirement of clear and comprehensible drafting — Essential conditions defined in the contract ‘for information purposes’ — Directive 2008/48/EC — Consequences of errors in a creditworthiness assessment)
Consumer protection — Unfair terms in consumer contracts — Directive 93/13 — Scope — Terms defining the main subject matter of the contract or concerning the price or the remuneration and the services or goods supplied as consideration —Term in a loan agreement denominated in a foreign currency and relating to the foreign exchange risk — Included — Conditions — Obligation to satisfy the requirements of intelligibility and transparency — Level of information required — Scope — Verification a matter for the national court
(Council Directive 93/13, Arts 4(2) and (5))
(see paras 34-37, 40, operative part 1)
Operative part
1. | | Articles 4(2) and 5 of Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts must be interpreted as meaning that a loan agreement denominated in a foreign currency containing a term which transfers the foreign exchange risk to the consumer, without expressly warning him that there is no ceiling on currency fluctuation, and which mentions the amount of the loan denominated in a foreign currency and the amount of the repayment instalments denominated in the national currency for information purposes only, satisfies the requirement of clear and comprehensible drafting, referred to in the above mentioned provisions, provided that, |
– first, the consumer has been informed not only of the possibility that the foreign currency in which the loan was agreed may increase or decrease in value, but is also in a position to be able to evaluate the –potentially significant — economic consequences of the foreign exchange risk on his financial obligations, and
– second, the total amount made available to the borrower and the amount of the repayment instalments may be clearly determined. In so far as those amounts depend, respectively, on the exchange rate applicable on the date the funds are released and on the dates on which reimbursement is due, the requirement of clear and comprehensible drafting dictates that the method of calculation of those sums and the applicable exchange rate must be set out in a transparent manner.
2. | | The first and third questions referred by the Budai Központi Kerületi Bíróság (Central District Court, Buda, Hungary) are manifestly inadmissible. |