Payment service providers to actively inform consumers - CJEU in BAWAG (C-375/15)

As we have previously reported (Provision of information on a durable medium...), the BAWAG case (C-375/15) presented interesting questions for the CJEU to answer, namely, as to the notion of a 'durable medium' and the scope of the payment service providers' obligation to provide consumers with information. This week, on January 25, the CJEU issued the judgment in this case, following the reasoning presented by AG Bobek previously. This means that the 'durable medium' could only be considered as such when it allows users access to and a possibility of reproduction of the information it stores, during an adequate period of time. During this time the service provider may not be able to unilaterally modify this information. Moreover, 'active behaviour on the part of the provider' is required to draw 'the user's attention to the existence and availability of that information' if this information has been placed online (on a website). 

The final part of the conclusions of the CJEU is interesting, as it states that when there is no active behaviour on the part of the provider, the information is merely 'made available' instead of being 'provided' or 'given' to consumers. The Court by making this crucial distinction may have made it easier for online traders to provide information to consumers concluding distance selling contracts under the Consumer Rights Directive, which allows traders to just make the information available to consumers (deviating from the previous language of the Distance Selling Directive and its interpretation in Content Services judgment). We could expect the Court to uphold this understanding of the traders' and service providers' obligation to 'make information available' to consumers beyond the area of payment services, i.e. in distance selling contracts, even though in the area of payment services this interpretation is based on recital 27 to the Payment Services Directive:

"(...) it should be noted that, as stated in recital 27 to that directive, two methods of transmitting information by the payment service user should be distinguished: either the information concerned should be provided, i.e. actively communicated by the payment service provider without further prompting by the payment service user, or the information should be made available to the payment service user, taking into account any request he may have for further information. In the latter case, the payment service user should take some active steps to obtain the information, such as requesting it explicitly from the payment service provider, logging into a bank account online or inserting a bank card into a printer for account statements." (para. 47) 

Another interesting tidbit is the CJEU's shared opinion with the AG Bobek that it cannot be expected of payment service users "to regularly consult all e-communication services that they are signed up to" (para. 49). If this observation would apply to other areas of consumer protection, it could feasibly broaden the scope of protection offered so far to average consumers online, potentially also requiring more active behaviour on the side of the professional party to the transaction.

ECJ in Home Credit Slovakia (C-42/15): MS can impose written form for the conclusion of credit contracts

Last week, the Court of Justice issued its decision in Home Credit Slovakia, C-42/15. We have already covered the AG's opinion on this case, which was largely followed by the Court. For this reason, the comment here is limited to the two most complex questions discussed and decided by the Court.

Background: the Consumer Credit Directive (art 10.1) provides that “credit agreements shall be drawn up on paper or other durable medium”.  It then makes a list of 22 elements of information which should be included in said agreements.

Slovakian law requires credit contracts to be concluded “in writing”, which means that offer and acceptance have to be signed. This contract to be concluded in writing has to include all the elements mentioned by the consumer credit directive.

The facts of the case are largely unremarkable, except for the fact that  we know a few of the elements which the Directive and Slovakian law require to be included in the contract were not specified in the document signed by the parties, but only in the lender’s terms and conditions .

The main questions before the court of justice were:

•     whether the directive requires all the information to be contained in a single document, ot whether it allows part of that information to be provided in a different document, aka the provider’s standard terms of business;
•            whether a requirement under national law that all the information be included in one document- or that if part of the information is contained in a separate, unsigned agreement, the contract cannot have full legal effect - is precluded by the directive.

The AG had discussed at length the Slovak translation of the Directive’s text, and had ended up  discussing separately the compatibility of national legislation possibly imposing as well as not imposing the requirement that the information be all included in a single document.

When discussing expressly the possibility that national legislation allows for the information to be split among different documents, the AG went on to explain (para 52 of her Opinion) what conditions would make this acceptable in line of the Directive’s requirements.

The Court does not discuss much whether allowing the information to be split among different documents is in line with the Directive, since “there is nothing in the Directive to indicate that the credit agreements referred to in that provision must be drawn up in a single document” (para 30).

The Advocate General found this potentially more problematic, and included the requirements in her conclusions- there is no trace of the same nuance in the Court’s decision. On the other hand, the Court is more explicit on the fact that the formal requirements for the conclusion of a credit contract are left for the Member States to determine (para 39 ff), and avoids entirely the “single document” issue- which allows them not to make any reference again to the relationship between the standard terms and the text of the agreement. While the Advocate General assumed that the “in writing” obligation and the single document would go hand in hand, the Court is suggesting a different interpretation- namely that national laws could be seen to require that both the main text and the standard terms should be signed by the consumer. 

Provision of information on a durable medium: AG Bobek on Case C‑375/15

Today, an interesting opinion by AG Michal Bobek has been published. It concerns more directly the field of e-banking, but also touches on a question of more general relevance to consumer law, namely when information can be said to have been "provided" to consumers and what constitutes a "durable medium" allowing prolonged accessibility of the information. 

In the case under review, a bank was using its e-banking mailbox as a tool to communicate changes in its terms and conditions to its customers. The question before the court of justice boiled down to whether this practice complied with the Payment Services Directive (Directive 2007/64/EC), which requires information on contractual changes to be timely provided to consumers on a durable medium. 

The AG starts with pointing out that, in his opinion, "providing" the information is a separate requirement than the "durable medium". 

The "durable medium" requirement has been the object of some discussion; the AG concludes that the most reasonable understanding of this requirement- not only in the context of this directive- is that it does not entail that information should be provided on a physical or "hardware" support, but that only two main characteristics should be guaranteed: 

1) accessibility for an appropriate amount of time; 

2) unaltered "reproducibility", which entails both the possibility to store the information for the consumer and the impossibility for the service provider to alter the contents of said information.

According to Bobek, it will be difficult for internal mailboxes to fulfill these requirements on their own merits- in other words, the mailbox can hardly be the "support" or durable medium on which information is provided. However, they can more easily be a transmission mechanism for the transmission of information on a durable medium- such as, we understand, a PDF file. 

On the other hand, even in case reasons would exist for the national court to consider the information as given on a durable medium, in itself the transmission via internal mailbox cannot be considered as "provision" of information. The information can, under the directive, only be considered to have been "made available" to the consumer. 

Provision of information, according to the AG, can be said to have been accomplished if a further alert is sent to the consumer through an instrument that he would more easily have regular access to- such as a personal email address or home mail. 

Although this seems to set the bar pretty high, the solution presented could still be seen as more lenient to service providers than the Court's precedent in Content Services, which had considered an email containing a link to a webpage not to represent "giving" of information under the Consumer Credit Directive (2008/48/EC). While the AG seems tempted to suggest that Content Services should be overturned or at least delimited, he mostly directs his efforts at distinguishing the two cases, by pointing out that the two directives (Payment Services and Consumer Credit) employ different language and also pursue different goals. Additionally, the AG observes that in a framework service contracts as the one at hand in the present case, the parties can agree that in general communication will take place via internal emails, thus in this case, once a consumer is alerted, "clicking several times or even typing a user name and passwords" are not actions which is unreasonable to require from a consumer to "receive" information sent to them (see para 82).

  

The opinion addresses several potentially contentious issues- which is confirmed by the fact that several governments (including the Italian and Polish governments) and the Commission intervened in the procedure. 

PS On a side, the opinion also touches on the question of whether the right to be provided information (in a certain way) can be waived by means of consent to standard terms. In this case, the question is not addressed by means of the Unfair Terms Directive- however, the court case stemmed from an injunction by a consumer association which sought to prevent the bank's continued use of a term by which the consumers agreed to information concerning contractual changes being provided in the way discussed. The Commission claimed this was a valid term, the AG disagrees.