Evrópurdómstóllinn segir að dómastólar skuli fella niður ósanngjarna skilmála

Færslan var fyrst birt á Moggabloggi höfundar 15.6.2012.

Í máli C-618/10 Banco Español de Crédito SA v Joaquín Calderón Camino komst Evrópudómstóllinn (Court of Justice of the European Union) að því að landréttur (a national court) geti ekki breytt innihaldi ósanngjarns skilmála í samningi gerðum milli seljanda/þjónustuaðila og neytanda ("A national court cannot revise the content of an unfair term in a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer").  Þegar slíkt ósanngjarn skilmáli finnst, ber landsrétti að ýta slíku ákvæði til hliðar ("Where it finds that a term is unfair, the national court is required solely to set that term aside").

Í fréttatilkynningu gefinni út í gær segir:

In its judgment delivered today, first, the Court holds that the national court is required to assess, of its own motion, whether a contractual term in a consumer contract is unfair, where it has available to it the legal and factual elements necessary for that task.

Þá:

..the Court points out, second, that, according to the Directive, an unfair term included in a contract concluded between a seller or supplier and a consumer does not bind the latter and that the contract containing such a clause remains binding for the parties on the same terms if it is capable of continuing in existence without that unfair term.

Og  svo niðurstaðan:

Consequently, where they find that there is an unfair term, national courts are required solely to exclude the application of such a term in order that it does not produce binding effects with regard to the consumer, without having the power to revise the content of that term. The contract containing the term must continue in existence, in principle, without any amendment other than that resulting from the deletion of the unfair terms, in so far as, in accordance with the rules of domestic law, such continuity of the contract is legally possible.

Vissulega ekki sams konar mál og með gengistryggðu vextina, en snýst um breytingar á skilmálum.