The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (“CRA”) is an important piece of recent legislation which governs many contracts between traders and consumers, and implements the. EU Unfair Contract Terms Directive (93/13/EC) (“UTD”.) “Consumer” is defined in section 2 (3) of the Act as: –
“an individual acting for purposes that are wholly or mainly outside that individual’s trade, business, craft or profession.”
There is as yet no direct authority on how the definition of consumer applies in the context of security documentation, but the Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ) has set out the test in the UTD for when it applies to personal Guarantees and security agreements given by an individual to secure debts of a company In Dumitru Tarcău, Ileana Tarcău v Banca Comercială Intesa Sanpaolo România SA (C-74/15) the court held that a personal Guarantee was to be subject to the UTD because it was given by a natural person, acting outside his trade or business, and who had no functional links to the guaranteed company.
The FCA has published new versions of the information sheets that consumer credit firms must use to accompany arrears and default notices. Firms are required to use the new versions from 27 July 2018.
The Joint Money Laundering Steering Group (JMLSG) has published a revised version of the Asset Finance sectors in Part II of its guidance on the prevention of money laundering and the financing of terrorism for the UK financial services industry.
“We are not looking for perfection. We do not have thousands of inspectors going out and checking people’s homework. What we do have are millions of people that have new rights and they can make a complaint against a company to our office”.
We recently prepared for trial a Funder’s defence to a claim which raised a number of difficult issues in relation to the annual statements required for a fixed sum credit agreement regulated by the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (“CCA”). In the event the matter settled before trial but a number of interesting points arose and are worth considering.
A recent VAT case in the European Court Justice is of considerable interest to motor-vehicle financiers because it blurs the long established distinction between the VAT treatment of lease and hire purchase.
A recent case in the High Court contains some interesting comments on the extent to which an obligation to provide equipment on hire of satisfactory quality and/or fit for purpose extends beyond the initial point of delivery.
Gayle joined Bermans in August 2017 and is a Litigation Executive in the Asset Based Lending team.
She has over 25 years experience of producing and managing court process for a variety of commercial clients and has worked extensively for clients in the asset based finance market.
Gayle predominantly deals with undefended and process driven claims.
Alissa is a Partner in our asset based lending team, acting for both financial institutions as well as corporate borrower clients. Since joining Bermans in 2017, she has undertaken a broad range of banking and finance work including invoice finance, asset finance and general corporate finance.
Alissa graduated from Liverpool University with a law degree before qualifying as a solicitor in 2010.
Alissa has a keen interest in live music and travelling, and have previously spent time travelling Thailand, Australia and Fiji.
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