Data Act

Rules on contractual terms should take into account the principle of contractual freedom as an essential concept in business-to-business relationships. Therefore, not all contractual terms should be subject to an unfairness test, but only those terms that are unilaterally imposed. This concerns take-it-or-leave-it situations where one party supplies a certain contractual term and the other enterprise cannot influence the content of that term despite an attempt to negotiate it. A contractual term that is simply provided by one party and accepted by the other enterprise or a term that is negotiated and subsequently agreed in an amended form between contracting parties should not be considered to have been unilaterally imposed.

Criteria for identifying unfair contractual terms should be applied only to excessive contractual terms where a stronger bargaining position has been abused. The vast majority of contractual terms that are commercially more favourable to one party than to the other, including those that are normal in business-to-business contracts, are a normal expression of the principle of contractual freedom and continue to apply. For the purposes of this Regulation, grossly deviating from good commercial practice would include, inter alia, objectively impairing the ability of the party upon whom the term has been unilaterally imposed to protect its legitimate commercial interest in the data in question.

In order to ensure legal certainty, this Regulation establishes a list of clauses that are always considered unfair and a list of clauses that are presumed to be unfair. In the latter case, the enterprise that imposes the contractual term should be able to rebut the presumption of unfairness by demonstrating that the contractual term listed in this Regulation is not unfair in the specific case in question. If a contractual term is not included in the list of terms that are always considered unfair or that are presumed to be unfair, the general unfairness provision applies. In that regard, the terms listed as unfair contractual terms in this Regulation should serve as a yardstick to interpret the general unfairness provision. Finally, non-binding model contractual terms for business-to-business data sharing contracts to be developed and recommended by the Commission may also be helpful to commercial parties when negotiating contracts. If a contractual term is declared to be unfair, the contract concerned should continue to apply without that term, unless the unfair contractual term is not severable from the other terms of the contract.