Rulings Of The National Courts Following The Curia Decision In Case C-186/16, Andriciuc And Others Vs Banca Romaneasca

AuthorMonica Calu, Costel Stanciu
Pages40-46
LESIJ NO. XXV, VOL. 2/2018
RULINGS OF THE NATIONAL COURTS FOLLOWING THE CURIA DECISION
IN CASE C-186/16, ANDRICIUC AND OTHERS VS BANCA ROMANEAS CA
Monica CALU
Costel STANCIU
Abstract
The CJEU's judgment in Andriciuc and Others vs Banca Românească Case C-186/16 that came
in September 2017 is an addition to a growing body of case law on procedural obstacles to consumer
protection under Directive 93/13/EEC. According to the Court, a contractual term must be drafted in
plain intelligible language, the information obligations should be performed by the bank in a manner
to make the well-informed and reasonably observant and circumspect consumer aware of both
possibility of a rise or fall in the value of the foreign currency and also enabling estimation of the
significant economic consequences of repayment of the loan in the same currency as the currency in
which the loan was taken out.
Following a succession of consumer-friendly preliminary rulings from European Court of Justice
(Case C-26/13, Árpád Kásler, Hajnalka Káslerné Rábai v OTP Jelzálogbank Zrt and Case C-186/16
Andriciuc and Others v Banca Românească, bank customers across the European Union are
increasingly taking their banks to court. However, there are still a lot of provisions in the national
legislations which made the judicial review of unfair contract terms difficult and reveals the limits of
consumer protection under Directive 93/13. Also, we focus on the powers of the national court when
dealing with a term considered to be unfair (civil) courts and the availability of legal remedies in
ensuring the effectiveness of the Directive.
Although the CJEU provides interpretation of EU law, the national court alone has jurisdiction
to find and assess the facts in the case before it and to interpret and apply national law. The ruling
issued by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJUE) in the Andriciuc versus Banca
Românească case represents a great advantage for some of the European debtors.
In this paper, we intend to examine, starting from the theory of abusive clauses and referring to
the jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice in the matter, to what extent it is possible that under
Council Directive 93/13 / EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts and the national
laws of the various Member States to order freeze of the exchange rate or conversion of the currency
of the credit into domestic currency
Keywords: unfair terms in consumer contracts; plain intelligible language in consumer
contracts; significant imbalance in the parties rights and obligations arising under the contract; case
C-186/16 Andriciuc and Others v Banca Românească; case C-26/13, Árpád Kásler, Hajnalka Káslerné
Rábai v OTP Jelzálogbank.
Consumer Law Expert Pro Consumatori Association (e-mail: monica.calu@apc-romania.ro).
 Associate Professor, Ph D, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, “Nicolae Titul escu”
University, Bucharest (e-mail: costelstanciu@apc-romania.ro).

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