Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 2 Unfair Contract Terms Directive, Article 3, 1.

By applying Law no. 193/2000, which transposes the Unfair Terms Directive 93/13, the courts of law allowed the claimants request to be reimbursed with all amounts of money paid after the bank unilaterally amended the interest rate and extended the period for which the risk charge shall be perceived

On March 12th 2007, between the claimants, as borrowers, and the defendant as lender, it was signed a credit agreement for an amount of 64,000 Euro, for 360 months, with an interest rate of 5.95 % per year.
On November 12th 2007, the defendant bank unilaterally modified the quantum of the interest rate from 5.95% to 7.45 % per year.
In October 2008, the defendant proceeded to the unilateral prolongation of the period of time for which the risk charge was to be perceived by the bank.
On December 7th 2009, the first court partially allowed the claim filed by the claimants and obliged the defendant to issue a new reimbursement schedule and to reimburse to the claimants the amount of 838.34 Euro, because the defendant collected from the claimants an amount that was not contractually justified.
On June 17th 2010, the Bucharest Court of Appeal rejected the appeal filed by the defendant as not grounded. Also, the second recourse filed by the claimant was rejected as not grounded.

With regard to the provisions of the unfair terms law, the court of law ruled inter alia that:

- Parties did not determine a criterion for the term used in the contract, of “significant change in the financial market” which would allow the bank to unilaterally amend the interest rate.
- The defendant did not produce any evidence on the significant change which would allow it to unilaterally amending the interest rate; therefore the first court concluded that the amendment of the interest rate has no contractual grounds.
- As regards the prolongation of the term for perceiving the risk charge, the court held that the defendant did not prove any increase of the refinancing costs of the bank which were invoked for such a prolongation.
- As a result, the first court held that the defendant cashed from the claimants an amount representing difference of interest rate and risk charge on the basis of the not contractually justified unilateral amendments of the contract and such amount should be paid back to the claimants.
- The appeal court and the second appeal court held that the decision of the first court was grounded since the defendant did not prove the significant changes on the financial market or the increase of refinancing costs, not being sufficient to simply invoke the existence of the international economic crisis.

Text integral: Text integral

Nu există rezultate disponibile

Nu există rezultate disponibile