Federico Della Negra: <i>Financial Services Contracts in EU Law</i>

Consumer finance is increasingly impacted by EU financial markets legislation.Both consumers and retail investors are subject to similar weaknessessuch as behavioural biases and information asymmetries.Arguably, these vulnerabilities arise independently of the type of service being used, be it a consumer loan, a mortgage, a payment or investment service.Nonetheless, the EU's regulatory approach in these sectors remains highly fragmented.Rules aimed at protecting the users of financial services against market failures and misconduct are often sector-specific.EU law harmonizes different aspects of private law for each type of consumer or retail investment contract, while the remaining matters are left to national private law.This raises several questions.For instance, to what extent should national judges be guided by the EU's objective of consumer protection when interpreting national private law?More broadly, what private law remedies are available to consumers when neither EU nor national legislation provides clear guidance?The book 'Financial Services Contracts in EU law' by Dr Federico Della Negra offers essential insights into these central questions.The volume examines critically how the European Court of Justice (CJEU) interprets classic private law rules in consumer financial transactions: the scope of precontractual information duties, the type of remedy for breach of those duties, the conditions for the validity of contract terms, the effects of invalidation of those terms.These issues are examined chiefly with respect to the Directive on unfair contract terms, 1 the Directive on consumer credit, 2 as well as the PSD II 3 and MIFID II. 4 The discussion thus covers consumer and mortgage loans, as well as payment and investment services contracts.Structurally, the book is composed of three parts.The first part deals with EU rule-making and illustrates the principles and legal tools with which the EU legislator 1 Dir 1993/13/EEC on unfair contract terms. 2 Dir 2008/48/EC on consumer credit.