불공정조항지침 관련 최근 EU 판례 동향 및 시사점

Recently, European Court of Justice made a few meaningful decisions as to consumer protection law. Regarding these decisions, two points are noteworthy. First, as to the concept problems of ‘consumers’ and ‘consumer contract,’ to some extent the position of the Court of Justice has been made through a series of court decisions. Second, courts have provided meaningful standards on the clarity requirements in relation to unfairness of insurance contracts where consumer damages often take place. These two points are closely related to interpretation issues on Unfair Terms Directive. Both Birutė Šiba v Arūnas Devėnas and Horaƫiu Ovidiu Costea v. SC Volksbank România SA are cases where plaintiffs are lawyers. In these cases, in order for plaintiffs to argue that plaintiffs are consumers who are objects of protection according to Unfair Terms Directive 2(b), the relevance of work in the purpose of contracts should be negated. These cases show how courts evaluated such an issue. In Jean-Claude Van Hove v CNP Assurances SA, emphasizing the clarity obligation, European Court of Justice ruled that insurers are required to educate consumers on the economic effects of insurance policies. The court also pointed that a drafter has to rely on precise and intelligible criteria on the economic effects of the entire contracts although plain English is used in contracts. The aforementioned cases are important cases that can be cited with respect to unfair clauses in consumer contracts. These cases provide standards on consumers, the objects who are protected by law and directive and the subjects who enjoy rights of consumers. These cases also specify the scope of consumer contracts, after taking into account purposes and functions of legislation.