§ 3-22. Duty to provide information before you enter into a financial agreement (finansavtale)

This section is the main rule that the customer must receive information before a financial agreement is entered into. The service provider, meaning the party offering the financial service, must give the customer both the terms and the relevant information. This must happen in good time before the agreement is in place. Which information this covers follows from the rules in § 3-23 to § 3-39. If something else is specifically provided, that takes precedence.

Who the duty to provide information applies to depends on the form of sale and the type of agreement. For agreements entered into by distance selling (sales without a physical meeting), the requirements in § 3-24 to § 3-29 always apply. For the agreements in Chapters 4, 5 and 6, they apply regardless of how the agreement is entered into. Three groups are added, regardless of the form of sale: a financial guarantee in favour of a consumer, lease financing with a consumer when the agreement lasts more than 30 days after the month of delivery, and financial intermediation that is not already covered by the Securities Trading Act, the Securities Funds Act or the Crowdfunding Act.

The law takes into account that information cannot always be given in advance. If the customer places an order through distance communication, for example by telephone, and it is impossible to give the terms first, they must come right after the agreement is entered into or a single payment is carried out. The requirements for entering into the agreement itself, including the signature, are not changed by this. If the sale takes place outside the service provider's permanent premises, the customer must always receive information about the right of withdrawal. The customer can also ask for the terms and information for as long as the contractual relationship lasts. For several individual services on the same terms within one year, the duty applies at the first delivery, and it applies again if more than one year has passed since the last one.

This section is the introduction to a long series of information rules. How the information is to be given is set out in § 3-23: as a main rule in a written document, and the service provider has also fulfilled the duty when the customer has received a draft of the agreement containing the information. The content is divided by topic, for example information about the service provider (§ 3-24), about entering into the agreement and changes (§ 3-25) and about the credit assessment (kredittvurdering) (§ 3-29). Offers made in a telephone call have their own rules in § 3-39.