Abstract

The article constitutes a polemic with Jarosław Bełdowski’s and Michał Jabłonowski’s criticism of the view prevailing in the last few years in the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court and common courts as regards the abusive nature of conversion clauses in agreements for indexed loans and loans denominated in foreign currencies concluded in the years 2005–2009. The author points out that the charges of uncritical automatic replication of decisions based on a superficial analysis of CJEU judgments put forth by Jarosław Bełdowski and Michał Jabłonowski are groundless. In light of the CJEU case law it is justified to consider currency conversion clauses as abusive if they do not specify an objective and comprehensible methods for setting the currency rate to be used or when the consumer has not been clearly informed by the bank that signing a foreign currency related loan agreement involves taking an unlimited risk the economic consequences of which may turn out to be hard to bear in case of a sharp increase of the exchange rate. With a view to the object and criteria for assessing agreement provided for in Directive 93/13 substantive attributes of a consumer (their education, experience, discernment) must not affect the assessment of the abusive nature of the terms of the agreement concluded therewith.