In this post we offer our readers the conclusions of a detailed commentary, which will be published soon in the electronic edition of the “Consumer and User Rights Law Review” published by V-Lex on the two judgments of the Plenary of the First Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court, numbers 154/2025 and 155/2025, both dated 30 January, on revolving card contracts, which establish jurisprudential doctrine on the lack of transparency and the consequent unfairness of the clauses in the credit card contract that fixes the interest rate, evaluated jointly with those establishing the revolving repayment system, ruling in particular on the time at which information must be provided and its content in order to assess the possible abusive nature of the clause that does not pass the transparency control.
1ª. The importance of the judgments of the Plenary of the First Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court numbers 154/2025 and 155/2025, of 30 January, lies not only in their own content, with the limit in their subjective and subjective scope that derives from this; not even in their nature as plenary judgments that set unified criteria; but in that – on the occasion of the control of transparency for the purposes of the possible qualification of the abusivity of the clause fixing the interest rate – they go further to offer us a jurisprudential notion of the consumer credit contract instrumented by means of a revolving card.
2ª. The jurisprudential concept of the consumer credit contract instrumented by means of a revolving card is that of a consumer credit with interest, of indefinite or definite duration that can be automatically extended, granted to natural persons, in which the consumer can draw up to the limit of the credit granted.
3ª. The relevant characteristics of these credits affect two factors – the time and the amount of their repayment- whose combination generates particularly onerous effects for the accredited consumer, generating the aggravated risk that we have called ‘the curse of Sisyphus’.
4ª. The transparency of information required for the validity of these consumer credit contracts instrumented by means of revolving cards affects both their content and their result.
5ª. In this last sense, the interpretation of case law may generate certain collateral effects that cast doubt on whether the banks’ obligations of means or of result are established and whether any irrational conduct of the average consumer is protected.
6ª. The two judgments under discussion present a series of common denominators in procedural and substantive terms.
7ª. The common procedural denominators affect the two claims in the two lawsuits, the upholding of the subsidiary claims of abuse by the judgments at first instance, the upholding of the respective appeals by the judgments of the provincial courts, the upholding of the respective cassation appeals, the dismissal of the main claims of usury in the two lawsuits, the upholding of the subsidiary claims of abuse and an order that the defendant entities pay the costs.
8ª. The material common denominators concern the examination of the abusive nature of the two possible ways of challenging the interest clauses of revolving credit, the control of full transparency and opacity as a necessary – but not sufficient – condition for the qualification of nullity due to abusiveness.
9ª. It is relevant to carry out a specific examination of Judgement number 154/2025 of 30 January because, firstly, it establishes jurisprudential doctrine when it sets out the reasons for upholding the extraordinary appeal for procedural infringement in accordance with a syllogism in which:
a) The main premise consists of the jurisprudential doctrine of the TC and the SC itself on the precise requirements for an error in the assessment of evidence to justify an extraordinary appeal for procedural infringement being upheld.
b) The minor premise is that the judgment under appeal shows the relevant defects of the error in the assessment of the evidence.
c) The conclusion consists of the need for the First Civil Division of the Supreme Court to issue a new judgment.
10ª. It is relevant to carry out a specific examination of Judgement number 154/2025 of 30 January because, secondly, it establishes jurisprudential doctrine when it sets out the reasons for upholding the cassation appeal in accordance with a syllogism whereby:
a) The main premise lies, in general, in the case law of the CJEU on unfair terms in consumer contracts and, specifically, in consumer credit contracts and, in particular, in the case law of the First Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court itself on the clauses of revolving credit contracts concerning the time at which the financial institution must inform the consumer and the content of the information that the financial institution must provide to the consumer.
b) The minor premise lies in the circumstances of the case in question.
c) The conclusion is that the courts must go through two successive stages in order to conclude that the terms of a revolving credit agreement are unfair and therefore null and void: a first stage in which they establish the lack of transparency and a second stage in which they verify the existence of the other defects (essentially bad faith and the imbalance of obligations of the parties) included in the legal concept of unfair terms in accordance with Article 82 of the General Law for the Defence of Consumers and Users