31.5.2021

Official Journal of the European Union

C 206/17

(Case C-170/21)

(2021/C 206/22)

Language of the case: Bulgarian

Referring court

Parties to the main proceedings

Applicant: Profi Credit Bulgaria EOOD

Defendant: T.I.T.

Questions referred

1.Must Article 6(1) of Directive 93/13/EEC (1) be interpreted as requiring the court, in proceedings to which the debtor is not party until the issuance of a court order for payment, to assess of its own motion the unfairness of a contractual term and, if there is a suspicion that the term is unfair, to disapply it?

2.If the first question is answered in the affirmative, is the national court required to refuse to issue a court decision ordering payment altogether where part of the claim was based on an unfair contractual term, which gives rise to the amount of the claim asserted?

3.If the first question is answered in the affirmative and the second in the negative, is the national court required partially to refuse to issue a court decision ordering payment in respect of the part of the claim that was based on the unfair term?

4.If the third question is answered in the affirmative, is the court required, and, if so, under what conditions, to take into account of its own motion the consequences of the unfairness of a term in the case where it has available to it information about a payment based on that term, inter alia by offsetting that payment against other outstanding debts under the contract?

5.If the fourth question is answered in the affirmative, is the national court bound by the instructions of a higher court which, under national law, are binding on the instance under review, in the case where those instructions do not take the consequences of the unfairness of a term into account?

Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts (OJ 1993 L 95, p. 29).