The Court of Justice of the European Union has issued a judgement on the 31/03/22 on European Consumer Law within the context of loans denominated in foreign currencies.
Judgement of the Court can be found here .
As per the press release 55/22:
The Court of Justice of the European Union in its very important ruling has reinforced the position that in the event that the contract is invalid and it is not possible to re-establish the situation existing prior to its conclusion, the national court must restore the contractual balance between the parties without however going beyond what is strictly necessary to that end.
In that regard, the Court notes that, where a term of a consumer contract relating to the main subject-matter of that contract must be declared unfair, the directive does not preclude a national court from restoring the parties to the contract to the situation they would have been in if that contract had not been concluded. However, if that is not possible, it is for that court to ensure that the consumer is ultimately restored to the situation that he or she would have been in if the unfair term had never existed.
In that context, the Court specifies that, in the present case, the interests of the consumer could be protected by, inter alia, the reimbursement to the consumer of the amounts unduly paid to the lender on the basis of the term deemed unfair. As regards the possible reclassification, by the national court, of the loan agreement denominated in a foreign currency into a loan agreement denominated in HUF, the Court considers that the court’s powers cannot extend beyond what is strictly necessary to restore the contractual balance between the parties to the contract and thus to protect the consumer from the particularly unfavorable consequences which could result from the annulment of the loan agreement in question.
