Corporate and M&A

Contact: Rebecca Quinn; Clarkslegal LLP (Reading, England)

The European Court of Justice has recently made a decision that has clarified certain provisions of the Unfair Contract Terms Directive (invoked via the Unfair Contract Terms Act), which applies to consumer contracts, with a review of supplier controlled price variation clauses.

Legislation prohibits the use of unfair terms in consumer contracts including the "grey list” in UCTA. This prevents the use of certain contractual terms that have the object of, or have the effect of:

• Binding the consumer to a contract they didn’t have the chance to fully understand
• Allowing a supplier to alter the conditions of the contract without a valid reason that is not specified in the contract
• Allowing the supplier to increases its prices without giving the consumer the ability to dissolve the contract before the price rise

Read the entire article.