§1.2.5 Interplay with the Price Indication Directive

The Price Indication Directive 98/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (69) (PID) requires traders to indicate the selling price and the unit price (price per unit of measurement) of goods in order to facilitate price comparison by consumers. Furthermore, Directive (EU) 2019/2161 added to the PID specific rules concerning ‘price reductions’. Concerning the interplay between the UCPD and the requirements of the PID regarding the indication of the selling price, the Court clarified in Citroën (paragraphs 44 to 46) that the PID regulates specific aspects of unfair commercial practices in dealings between businesses and consumers for the purpose of Article 3(4) UCPD, namely, those that relate to the indication, in offers for sale and in advertising, of the goods’ selling price (70). Therefore, the PID applies, rather than the UCPD (Article 7(4)(c)) ‘ in so far as the aspect relating to the selling price referred to in an advertisement such as that at issue in the main proceedings is governed by Directive 98/6’. In this case the relevant aspect was the trader’s failure to indicate as selling price the final price, i.e. price including additional compulsory costs that were mentioned separately in the advertisement for the car. Accordingly, Article 2 of the PID, which defines selling price as the final price for the good including VAT and all other taxes, does not prevent the application of other requirements of Article 7(4)(c) of the UCPD that are not governed by it. In particular, traders must comply with the UCPD requirement for an invitation to purchase to include also information about possible additional charges where those cannot reasonably be calculated in advance. The amendments introduced to the PID by Directive (EU) 2019/2161 require Member States to adopt specific rules on price reductions (71). According to Article 6a, the trader announcing a ‘price reduction’ must indicate the ‘prior price’ which is defined as the lowest price charged by that trader during the past period of at least 30 days. By analogy with the Court’s findings in Citroën, the specific rules of the PID on price reductions should prevail over the UCPD regarding those aspects of price reduction that are governed by these specific rules, namely, the definition and indication of the ‘prior’ price when announcing price reduction. However, the UCPD remains applicable to other aspects of price reductions, in particular Article 6(1)(d) on the misleading claims about the existence of price advantage. It could apply, for instance, to different misleading aspects of price reduction practices, such as: — excessively long periods during which announcements of price reductions apply compared to the period during which the goods are sold at ‘full’ price; — advertising a promotion of, for example, ‘up to 70 % off’ when only a few of the items are reduced at 70 % and the rest are reduced at a lower percentage. Such practices could be found to be in breach of the UCPD (Article 6(1)(d)), subject to a case-by-case assessment, notwithstanding the fact that the trader has complied with the requirements of the PID as regards the definition and indication of the ‘prior’ price. Conversely, a trader found in breach of the PID rules on price reductions, i.e. definition and display of the ‘prior price’, could also be found in breach of the UCPD. Moreover, the PID applies only to tangible goods and not to services and digital content, hence the general UCPD rules continue to be fully applicable to the price reduction practices regarding such other products. Finally, as the PID applies only to ‘price reductions’ as specifically defined therein, the UCPD remains fully applicable and governs other types of practices promoting price advantages, such as comparisons with other prices, combined or tied conditional offers and loyalty programmes (see section 2.8.2). The UCPD also applies to personalised prices (see section 4.2.8.).

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