PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Hans van Meerten AU - Elmar Sven Schmidt TI - An Overview of EU Case Law: <em>Consumer Protection as the Guiding Principle in Financial Services</em> DP - 2016 Sep 21 TA - Special Issues PG - 37--40 VI - 2016 IP - 1 4099 - https://pm-research.com/content/2016/1/37.short 4100 - https://pm-research.com/content/2016/1/37.full AB - The protection of consumer rights in the case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) is being given an increasingly important role. This concern for consumers has also helped drive European integration, as set out in the case law to be discussed in this article. The first case explains that national judges are required to apply European Union (EU) law of their own motion (in Froukje Faber, C-497/13)—for instance, to determine whether or not a litigant can be considered to possess the status of “consumer,” with corresponding rights. The next case focuses on the influence of unwritten principles of EU law on national law (Dansk Industri C-441/14). On the other hand, unwritten principles of national law can also be a legal basis to demand additional information from insurance providers in the interest of the consumer’s understanding of the proposed policy (NN/van Leeuwen, C-51/13). Finally, the obligation of transparency that is to be complied with in the extension of collective agreements is explained (UNIS, C-25/14).