Judgment_paragraph 74 · Banco Santander SA v Mahamadou Demba and Mercedes Godoy Bonet and Rafael Ramón Escobedo Cortés v Banco de Sabadell SA (C-96/16, C-94/17)

74While the Court has accepted that a national court may substitute a supplementary provision of domestic law for an unfair contractual term, the Court has held that that possibility is limited to situations in which the invalidation of that contractual term would require the court to annul the agreement in its entirety, thereby exposing the consumer to such consequences that he would be penalised as a result. From that point of view, as the Court has in essence ruled, the annulment of a term in a loan agreement fixing the default rate of interest applicable cannot have adverse consequences for the consumer concerned inasmuch as the amounts which may be demanded from him by the lender will necessarily be lower if that default interest does not apply (see, to that effect, judgment of 21 January 2015, Unicaja Banco and Caixabank, C‑482/13, C‑484/13, C‑485/13 and C‑487/13, EU:C:2015:21, paragraphs 33 and 34).