site.btaCommission for Consumer Protection Brings Class Actions against Mobile Phone Operators over Unfair Term in their Fixed-Term Contracts

Commission for Consumer Protection Brings Class Actions
against Mobile Phone Operators over Unfair Term
in their Fixed-Term Contracts


Sofia, September 15 (BTA) - The Commission for Consumer
Protection is bringing class actions against all three mobile
operators in Bulgaria, asking the court to declare null an
identical unfair term in the general terms and conditions of
their fixed-term contracts, the Commission said on Monday.

The move comes after the three service providers ignored
recommendations given by the Commission in letters to modify the
terms.

Under the terms in question, customers are required to pay
excessive damages: all monthly fees until expiry of the term of
the contract, in case it is terminated on their initiative,
regardless of the reason. Thus, if the consumer wishes to
terminate the contract because of a bad quality of services or
non-specific performance of the contract on the part of the
provider, a change of the address at which the service is used
and the operator's inability to provide it at the new address or
other objective circumstances similar to these, the unfair term
in question obliges the consumer to pay the operator
unjustifiably large damages. The damages so agreed in the mobile
operators' contracts are entirely punitive and exceed the
functions of damages provided for by the law: to secure, to
compensate and to punish, which must apply simultaneously, the
press release says.

The term comes under Article 146 (2) of the Consumer Protection
Act which deals with terms that have been drafted in advance and
the consumer has not been able to influence their substance,
the Commission said. In this sense, the clauses obliging the
consumer to pay damages amounting to all monthly subscription
fees due until the expiry of the term of the contract where a
fixed-term contract is terminated on his or her initiative
regardless of the grounds are unfair because they coercively
bind the consumer and cause a significant imbalance in the
rights and obligations of the two parties to the contract, the
Commission argued. VI/LG