§3.1.2 Clarity of the information and link to the UCPD

Article 7 of the UCPD prohibits misleading omissions, i.e. commercial practices that omit or provide in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner ‘material information that the average consumer needs to take an informed transactional decision’ when such practice causes the average consumer to take a transactional decision that they would not have taken otherwise. Article 7(4) lays down information requirements for the ‘invitation to purchase’, which is commercial communication that includes information about the product’s characteristics and price, therefore covering also the pre-contractual stage of the transaction. The CRD regulates the pre-contractual stage in greater detail than the UCPD. Articles 5 and 6 of the CRD cover all the information requirements laid down in Article 7(4) of the UCPD (49). Therefore, when providing pre-contractual information in accordance with the CRD, a trader will also comply with the specific information requirements for the invitation to purchase under Article 7(4) of the UCPD. This is without prejudice to the application of other transparency and fairness requirements under the UCPD. Both Article 5(1) and 6(1) of the CRD require information to be provided in a ‘clear and comprehensible manner’. Recital 34 specifies that, in providing pre-contractual information, ‘[…] the trader should take into account the specific needs of consumers who are particularly vulnerable because of their mental, physical or psychological infirmity, age or credulity in a way which the trader could reasonably be expected to foresee. However, taking into account such specific needs should not lead to different levels of consumer protection.’ In addition, under the general rules of Article 7(2) of the UCPD, traders must ensure that the information is intelligible and timely, i.e. the method and the moment at which the relevant pre-contractual information is provided must allow the average consumer to take an informed transactional decision. For off-premises contracts Article 7(1) of the CRD additionally requires the pre-contractual information to be ‘legible and in plain, intelligible language’ and for distance contracts Article 8(1) of the CRD requires information to be made available to the consumer ‘in a way appropriate to the means of distance communication used in plain and intelligible language. In so far as that information is provided on a durable medium, it shall be legible.’ It is not sufficient to provide the mandatory pre-contractual information merely as part of the general terms and conditions that the consumer may have to accept before moving on in the transaction process (50). The requirement to provide information in a ‘clear and comprehensible manner’ means that the individual elements of the mandatory information must be brought to the attention of the consumer. In the online context, traders must make the mandatory information easily accessible and prominently visible to consumers. Due to its volume, it might not be possible to provide the mandatory consumer information in a ‘clear and comprehensible’ manner on a single page. Excessively long pages, where consumers would have to scroll down extensively in order to read all content, should be avoided. Instead, the various elements of pre-contractual information should be provided when they are most relevant during the process of concluding the contract as the consumer moves from one page of the online interface to another. Where needed, information on specific subjects should be layered, with a prominent pointer on the front page leading to the linked page that provides all the details on the respective subject (51). Additional presentation requirements for distance contracts concluded by electronic means are set out in Article 8(2) of the Directive, as further discussed in section 4.2.4.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07