Comment - Commercial Law

Protection of small and medium-sized businesses against general contractual conditions: the civil code as defence. Carlos F. Cervantes Lozano. Attorney at law. Associate University Professor. BC Valencia

Reflection on which measures are offered by our hundred-year old Civil Code to small and medium-sized businesses for their protection against general contractual conditions that can, in certain cases, turn out to be abusive, stems from article 2b of Directive 13/93, regarding abusive contractual clauses, which define the "consumer" as "any natural person who, under contracts regulated by the present Directive, is acting with a purpose which differs from their professional activity". In this way, the Community Directive, in comparison with the Spanish Consumers and Users Act [Ley de Consumidores y Usuarios] of 1989 and the Draft Bill on General Contractual Conditions from the Ministry of Justice, further reduces the subjective scope of what has come to be called, and not without