The Court first reiterates the broad definition of the notion "commercial practice" in Article 2(d) of the Directive.
The Court subsequently refers to the provisions on misleading practices which refers to commercial practices containing false information regarding the elements listed in the Directive which amongst others include the price or the manner in which the price is calculated.
As a result, so the Court decides, a commercial practice which consists in indicating in a credit agreement an annual percentage rate of charge lower than the real rate, constitutes false information, and, in so far as such false indication is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision that he would not have taken otherwise, that false information must be regarded as a misleading commercial practice.
The Court further rules that the finding that a commercial practice is unfair has no direct effect on the assessment of the validity of the credit agreement concluded, from the point of view the Unfair Contract Terms Directive. However, a finding that a commercial practice is unfair is one element among others on which the competent court may base its assessment of the unfairness of contractual terms.
URL: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:62010CJ0453:EN:HTML
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