Price reduction as a consumer sales remedy and the powers of national courts: Duarte Hueros

Publishers Abstract:

This case is interesting for a number of reasons. First, this is only the third time the Court of Justice has addressed the Consumer Sales Directive (hereafter: "CSD") in a preliminary reference procedure. However, the preliminary question under review is not about substantive law, but rather about procedural aspects. Indeed, it focuses on an often discussed theme: the power (or the duty) of national courts to apply ex officio European law or national provisions implementing European law.

The second is that the ex officio application of pleas is applied for the first time to national law transposing the Consumer Sales Directive. The specific question treated in the case is whether the CSD precludes national legislation which does not allow a court to grant of its own motion a price reduction when the consumer only invoked rescission of the contract, which could not be granted, in the specific circumstances that the consumer is not entitled to refine its original application or to bring a fresh action.