Exclusive: Banks lose, Supreme Court confirms termination of Swiss franc-indexed loan contracts

"Each side now returns to the other what has been received in dinars with interest in arrears. Therefore, the client has paid in advance and the bank will have to pay back a large amount of money," Gavrilovic explains.

The Supreme Court of Cassation (VKS) has upheld the final judgment terminating loan agreements indexed in Swiss francs, thereby finalizing this case completely.

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It was a lawsuit for termination of a contract due to substantially changed circumstances filed by a legal entity against a bank in 2015. The first-instance judgment was delivered in December 2016 and upheld by the Commercial Appellate Court in February 2018.

The bank filed a revision with the VKS, which was rejected on this occasion.

What's important in this decision of the VKS is the statement that the termination of the Swiss franc contract is an existing court practice, that the reasons given by the lower instance courts when deciding to terminate the contract do not contradict the previous case law, they say in the Effektiva Association - and that there is no need for any new interpretation of law in this regard.

"According to the ZOO (law on contract and torts), each side now returns to the other what has been received in dinars with interest in arrears. Therefore, the client has paid in advance and the bank will have to pay back a large amount of money. I expect that the bank and the debtor will quickly agree on this and that the process will be formally completed," Dejan Gavrilovic of the Efektiva Association has told Telegraf Bizinis.

He further expects all those who sued for termination to win these disputes.

"Unfortunately, most, who have converted their loans to euros, will continue to pay," adds Gavrilovic.

With this ruling, he says, for the first time, we have a judgment for termination confirmed by the VKS as well.

"Rumors reached us, from the bankers themselves, that there is once again a decision at the Supreme Court of Cassation confirming the court's decision to adopt the judgment for termination, and we expect that this will soon see the light of day, which will definitely confirm the long-standing commitment of Efektiva to solve the problems of Swiss franc indexed loans in this way," they say in Efektiva.

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(Telegraf Biznis/V.B.)