Challenge: send me the most obscure clause you have signed

Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair terms, in Article 5, says two things. Terms offered to the consumer in writing must always be drafted in plain, intelligible language. And where there is doubt about the meaning of a term, the interpretation most favourable to the consumer prevails.

In 2014, in Kásler, the Court of Justice made clear that the transparency requirement cannot be reduced to terms being formally and grammatically intelligible. It must be understood in a broad sense. For the term examined in that case, the consumer had to be able to evaluate, on the basis of clear, intelligible criteria, the economic consequences for them.

The challenge

Search your contracts, bills, terms of use, insurance policies. Find the most obscure clause you have signed. The one you read three times without understanding what it would cost you.

Send it to marco@giacomello.digital with the subject "Obscure clause". Remove names and personal data. Add one line: what you thought it meant, and what you found out later.

What I will do

I will pick some clauses, with the consent of those who sent them. I will analyse them with the È CHIARO? method: where the reader gets lost, what the structure hides, how it could be rewritten without losing precision.

I will publish the before and after. Not to shame anyone. To show that a clear clause is possible, and often shorter.