On June 10, 2021, the CJEU issued another important ruling for Swiss franc borrowers in Case C-198/20, which responded to preliminary questions submitted by the District Court for Warsaw-Wola in Warsaw. This ruling is extremely important in the context of cases involving Swiss franc loans, as it concerns the relationship between adequately reading the content of a loan agreement and the borrower's consumer status under EU Directive 93/13.
In the case under review, one borrower entered into an agreement with the bank on behalf of four borrowers, based on the powers of attorney granted. However, the signer did not read the agreement before signing it. One of the remaining three borrowers did read it after signing, but was unable to understand its provisions. The remaining two borrowers never encountered the agreement.
Due to these circumstances, the District Court for Warszawa-Wola in Warsaw has raised doubts as to how to interpret the provisions of Directive 93/13 on consumer protection. Seeking to dispel its own doubts, the District Court submitted a preliminary question to the CJEU: whether consumer protection is available to every consumer, or whether it only protects consumers who are reasonably well-informed – reasonably observant and circumspect.
In its decision of 10 June 2021, which constituted a response to the above-mentioned preliminary question, the CJEU recalled that the status of consumer is objective in nature and is granted regardless of the person's knowledge or the information he or she actually possesses.
Moreover, the CJEU confirmed that the consumer is always in a weaker position in relation to the trader and in most cases signs a ready-made contract form prepared by the trader without having any influence on its content.
Taking into account the arguments cited, the CJEU found that " the classification of a given person as a 'consumer' within the meaning of the provisions of Directive 93/13 does not depend on his conduct, even negligent, when concluding the loan ."
It can therefore be interpreted from the above that consumer protection provided for in Directive 93/1, i.e., among others, the right to challenge unfair contractual clauses, is available to every consumer , and not only to one who can be considered to be " an average consumer who is reasonably well informed and reasonably observant and circumspect ".
