argomento: News del mese - Diritto Internazionale e Comunitario

Articoli Correlati: unfair terms - consumer contracts

On 17 May 2018, in case C-147/16, the Court of Justice of the European Union stated that the E.U. Directive on unfair terms in consumer contracts may apply to an educational establishment and the national court is required to assess of its own motion whether the terms in a contract concluded between an educational establishment and a student and covered by the Directive are unfair. In this judgment, the Court first of all recalled whether a contractual term is unfair. That obligation includes the obligation for the national court to examine whether the contract containing the term falls within the scope of the E.U. Directive. It is a functional concept, requiring determination of whether the contractual relationship is amongst the activities that a person provides in the course of their trade, business or profession. The Court considered that, by providing such a service which is complementary and ancillary to its educational activity, the educational establishment acts as a ‘seller or supplier’ within the meaning of the Directive. In the context of a contract, there is, in principle, an inequality between the educational establishment and the student, owing to the asymmetry of information and expertise between those parties.