Consumer Sales and Guarantees Directive, link Consumer Sales and Guarantees Directive, Article 1, 2., (a)

Consumer protection doesn’t apply to contracts with commercial or professional goals, even if these activities are only planned for the future.

Relevance: The Court of Appeal reinforced the differentiation between consumer and non-consumer contracts.

The plaintiff drafted a sales contract for an automobile as a natural person, indicating that he intends to use the car as a taxi. Simultaneously, he committed to a loan as an individual entrepreneur, to finance the purchase. Later on, the the plaintiff entered into a dispute over the loan contract. The Court of First Instance ruled against the plaintiff, who appealed.

Whether the loan contract can be considered a consumer contract or not.

The Court of Appeal rejected the notion that the plaintiff was a consumer within the context of the contract. For its reasoning, the Court relied on interpreting general EU principles and jurisprudence regarding consumer protection, noting that the primary defining factor is that a consumer contract must include a party that acts in a professional, business capacity and another party that does not. The plaintiff entered into the loan contract with the explicit goal of using the resultant funds for professional activities, thus failed to qualify as a consumer. In part, the Court also mentioned Directive 1999/44/EC with regards to the definition of consumer.

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The Court of Appeal upheld the Court of First Instance’s ruling and dismissed the plaintiff’s appeal. It determined that the plaintiff was not a consumer within the contract’s context, as consumer contracts must include a party that acts in a professional, business capacity and another party that does not. As the plaintiff explicitly entered into the loan for the sole purpose of funding professional activities, it failed to qualify as a consumer.