§2.9.3 Material information provided in an unclear manner

COMMISSION NOTICE – Guidance on the interpretation and application of Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices in the internal market · European Union

According to Article 7(2), providing material information ‘in an unclear, unintelligible, ambiguous or untimely manner’ is a misleading omission, if this is likely to cause the average consumer to take a transactional decision they would not have taken otherwise. For example: — A national court concluded that a trader infringed Article 7 UCPD by informing consumers of their rights in an unclear, ambiguous and not reasonably understandable way. The trader had informed consumers about their right of withdrawal by providing the full text of a Government Decree. The court found that the text indicated numerous provisions not applicable to the contracts at stake and that delivering the full text of the Government Decree did not qualify as information by which consumers could plainly and concretely become aware of the conditions governing their right to withdraw from the contract (195). — A telephone operator advertised on TV a mobile phone subscription by highlighting the specific price benefits, whilst the restrictions and conditions of the offer were only presented in small print which appeared on the screen for a very short time. It was held that, despite the limits of space and time of the medium used (TV), nothing prevented the trader to more clearly indicate such central facts. Hence, to the extent that material information had been omitted, the advertising was found to be misleading (196). — The requirement to provide material information in a clear, intelligible and timely manner could be breached in a situation where an online trader targets consumers in a specific Member State, providing part of the material information in the language of that country but making other pieces of material information available only in a different language (197), for example in the standard terms and conditions (198).The application of the UCPD in such cases is complementary and without prejudice to more specific language requirements provided in accordance with other EU law, such as the regulatory option provided in Directive 2011/83/EU concerning contractual information in distance and off-premises contracts (see section 4.1.8 of the CRD Guidance Notice).

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