[1] It emphasises the foundations of consumer protection on inequality of bargaining power and imbalances in information.
He took out a mortgage with Caixa d'Estalvis de Catalunya (the Savings Bank of Catalonia), secured on his home at an annual default interest rate of 18.75%.
Under Spanish law, final vesting of the mortgaged property was irreversible even if a term was challenged as unfair before the court.
The only exception was where a consumer made preliminary registration for the application to be annulled before a marginal note regarding a security certificate.
The Caixa said this was inadmissible, as being irrelevant to the dispute, because it related to declaratory rather than enforcement proceedings.