Case C-714/26, Consumer Rights Recovery – interest on the fees, and what follows
The first question was whether charging interest on credit costs is lawful; the Court answered it in April. The second question — what a court must do about a contract that did — is worth more money than the first.
Facts
Consumer Rights Recovery sp. z o.o., as successor in title to a borrower, is suing BNP Paribas Bank Polska S.A. before the Sąd Rejonowy dla Warszawy-Woli. The credit agreement applied the borrowing rate not only to the amount of credit but also to the sums financing the costs of the credit — fees and charges that form part of the total cost of the credit to the consumer. That is the arrangement the Court addressed on 23 April 2026 in Case C‑744/24 (ECLI:EU:C:2026:337), holding that Article 3(g) and (j) of Directive 2008/48, read with Article 10(2), precludes clauses providing for the application of the interest rate not only to the total amount of the credit but also to sums allocated to paying the costs of that credit. The referring court now asks what follows: whether such a contract thereby breaches the information duties in Article 10(2)(f) to (i), whether the penalties adopted under Article 23 must be applied, and whether the national court must examine the point of its own motion.
Questions Referred
The first question is put in five limbs; they are set out in the notice as follows.
1. In a situation where a creditor, contrary to Article 3(g) and (j) of Directive 2008/48/EC … in conjunction with Article 10(2) of that directive, has applied the borrowing rate not only to the total amount of the credit, but also to the amounts allocated to the payment of costs associated with the credit and forming part of the total cost of the credit to the consumer (as in the circumstances considered in the judgment of the Court in Case C-744/24), should it be assumed that:
i. the creditor infringed … the obligation to provide information stemming from Article 10(2)(f) of Directive 2008/48/EC by specifying erroneously the conditions governing the application of the borrowing rate and not indicating clearly and separately that the borrowing rate would also apply to the financed costs of the credit?
ii. the creditor infringed … the obligation to provide information stemming from Article 10(2)(g) … by specifying erroneously the total amount payable by the consumer and the annual percentage rate of charge?
iii. the creditor infringed … the obligation to provide information stemming from Article 10(2)(h) … by specifying erroneously the amount and number of payments to be made by the consumer?
iv. the creditor infringed … the obligation to provide information stemming from Article 10(2)(i) … by failing to provide, in the amortisation table, a breakdown of each instalment identifying separately, in addition to the principal and the interest calculated using the borrowing rate, the portion of the financed amount allocated to the payment of costs associated with the credit and the interest calculated, using the borrowing rate, on that amount …?
2. In the event that any part of Question 1 is answered in the affirmative, must the existence of such an infringement or such infringements result in the national court applying the penalties provided for by the domestic legislation adopted pursuant to Article 23 of Directive 2008/48/EC?
3. In the event that any part of Question 1 is answered in the affirmative, must the national court examine of its own motion, in every case, whether infringements of that kind have occurred, or only where a specific allegation to that effect has been raised by the consumer (or the consumer’s successor in title) in the proceedings, especially where the applicant argues that the borrowing rate was applied, in a manner not permitted, not only to the total amount of the credit, but also to the amounts allocated to the payment of the costs associated with the credit and forming part of the total cost of the credit to the consumer?
Sources
OJ notice C/2026/4868 (EUR‑Lex) · Case file on CURIA · Judgment in C‑744/24 (ECLI:EU:C:2026:337) · Directive 2008/48/EC
Comment
The reference is a request to convert a principle into a remedy. C‑744/24 settled that interest may not run on financed costs; it did not say what a contract that does so has failed to disclose, and in Poland the answer to that question decides whether the borrower keeps the credit free of charge. The national penalty adopted under Article 23 — the sankcja kredytu darmowego — strips the lender of all interest and charges where the agreement omits or misstates the information Article 10(2) requires. So the five limbs of Question 1 are not academic taxonomy: each is an attempt to attach the substantive vice to a specific information duty, because the sanction is triggered by defective information, not by an unfair charge.
The limbs get progressively harder to resist. Article 10(2)(f) requires the agreement to state “the borrowing rate, the conditions governing the application of the borrowing rate”; if the rate was in fact applied to a base wider than the credit, the stated conditions were wrong, and limb (i) looks almost self-proving. Limb (ii) follows arithmetically — a wrong base produces a wrong total amount payable and a wrong APRC — and (iii) the same for the instalments. Limb (iv) is the most demanding, because it asks the Court to read Article 10(2)(i) as requiring the amortisation table to break out interest on financed costs as a separate line, which the provision does not say in terms.
Question 3, on the court’s own motion, is where the Court’s established case law pulls against the way these claims are brought. The duty to examine unfairness of its own motion exists to protect a consumer who is weak and uninformed; here the claimant is an assignee company in the business of buying such claims, and the referring court’s phrasing — “the consumer (or the consumer’s successor in title)” — puts the point on the record. The Court has held that the protective rationale attaches to the consumer’s position in the contract rather than to who later holds the claim, but it has not had to consider whether a court must scour a contract for defects nobody has pleaded when the party before it is a professional litigant. If the answer is yes in every case, Polish courts will be examining amortisation tables on their own initiative in tens of thousands of files; if it is yes only on a pleaded allegation, the assignees will simply plead everything.