Court of Justice of the EU interprets the term “consumer” in our client’s favor

In one of our leading and most prominent pending cases, we have represented our client before the Court of Justice of the EU in relation to a preliminary question posed by the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic. The question centers on the interpretation of the notion “consumer” under Article 17 of the Brussels Regulation Recast which allows a consumer to sue a foreign company (here a Cypriot brokerage company) in the place of the consumer’s domicile despite a clause giving jurisdiction to Cypriot courts.

The Court of Justice stressed that the knowledge and information that a person possesses in a certain field do not matter for the purposes of determining whether she requires consumer protection. Nor do the value of her transactions, the risks associated with them, or her active conduct. The case is now remanded back to the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic. For more, see Petruchová v. FIBO Group Holdings, CJ EU case C-208/18.