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Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen eV v Heinrich Heine GmbH (Environment And Consumers)
Verbraucherzentrale Nordrhein-Westfalen eV v Heinrich Heine GmbH (Environment And Consumers) - ECJ - 28-Jan-10 - - European - Consumer
Directive 97/7/CE Consumer protection Distance contracts Right of withdrawal Consumer charged with the cost of delivering the goods.
(Preliminary opinion) The company challenged an injunction against it to restrain it from requiring customers who returned goods under purchases governed by the regulations, to pay the delivery costs of goods even if returned.
Held: The question was as to whether such sums represented costs within the Directive. It was not a term defined in the Directive. The Directive used the term 'price' in several places, but here used the term 'sums paid' which must be a broader term, and "there is no justification for the view that 'sums paid' means only the price of the goods or the service, which would inevitably exclude an obligation to repay the other contractual costs paid by the consumer to the supplier in connection with a distance contract." This interpretation was supported by the phrase 'Free of charge'.
The balance in the sharing of the risks and burdens in the case of a distance contract where the consumer withdraws, which is provided for by Directive 97/7 in favour of the consumer, would be impaired if, in addition to the direct cost of return which the Member State may impose on the consumer, he also had to pay the cost of delivering the goods.
Directive 97/7/CE on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts
C-511/08 [2010] EUECJ C-511/08_O 28-Jan-10 Bailii Link
Case law from lawindexpro