Objective Criteria for Controlling the Fairness of Terms in Consumer Contracts and their Sanction: A Comparative Study in French and Iranian Law

In the French legal system, in order to control the fairness of the terms and judicial supervision of consumer contracts, two general categories of criteria have been identified and introduced to control them. The first one is  the Commercial Code, which governs all "commercial contracts" and forms part of a broader law on unfair competition law; it has historically been rooted in countering abuses’ by large retailers of their suppliers of goods. Second, in civil law, which seems to be influenced by the criteria for controlling the terms of consumer contracts in European law and governs the terms of contrats d’adhésion. That is, cases in which the "will" of one of the parties to the contract is not taken into account. In Iranian law, there is no objective criterion for recognizing the unfairness of conditions, and as a result, it has become difficult to control them. The law on e-commerce and the law on the implementation of the general policies of principle 44 of the Constitution are not helpful in this regard either, and the need to pay attention to this important issue is fully felt.