Consumer Protection: Unfair Contractual Terms for Athletes?

Jun 20, 2025 Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte

The Unfair Contract Terms Directive in consumer contracts states that contract terms concerning the main content and the price and remuneration adequacy must be drafted in plain, intelligible language, otherwise, they are considered unfair.

In the case at hand, the preliminary ruling procedure before the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) deals with a case from Latvia in which a prospective professional athlete concluded a contract with a services undertaking. In this contract, the young sportsman agreed to pay that service provider 10% of all his net income related to his sports activities for 15 years, provided that this income was at least EUR 1,500 per month. Since then, the young man has become a professional basketball player and has already generated an income of more than EUR 16 million. The young athlete’s contractual partner would therefore be entitled to EUR 1.6 million. However, the athlete has declined to make the payment, leading the service company to file a lawsuit with the appropriate court.

The Latvian Supreme Court referred the case to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling  to ascertain whether the Unfair Contract Terms Directive in consumer contracts (Directive 93/13/EEC) is applicable to the contract at issue and, if so, to what extent that Directive precludes such a term.

CJEU demands plain, intelligible language

The CJEU first of all confirmed that the Directive is indeed applicable to this situation. The Court notes, however, that, according to the Directive, contractual clauses on the main content and the price and remuneration adequacy may not be examined for abuse in so far as those terms are ‘in plain, intelligible language’.

On the question of whether this clause is drafted ‘in plain, intelligible language’, the JCEU referred to the transparency requirement of the Directive. In that context, consumers must be provided with all the necessary information to enable them to assess the financial consequences of their commitment, otherwise that term cannot be regarded as having been drafted in plain, intelligible language.

CJEU C-365/23