District Court in Warsaw in a case brought by PKO BP S.A. (the legal successor of the Nordea Bank Polska S.A.), in the judgment of July 13th, 2021, case no. XXIV C 158/18, determined that the contract concluded by the parties was invalid from the very beginning, because the bank has introduced provisions on the indexation of the loan to the Swiss franc which had shaped the rights and obligations of the borrower-consumer in a manner that is contrary to good practices, grossly violating his interests.
The court reminded the Parties that by the loan agreement, the bank undertakes to give the borrower a specific amount of money to use, and the borrower undertakes to repay this amount together with the remuneration – interest. Objections about the indexation of the loan to foreign currencies mean that borrowers are obliged to repay the bank the amount of the granted loan increased by the bank’s additional remuneration in the form of the exchange rate difference – which circumvents the prohibition of charging interest higher than the statutory maximum interest.
In the opinion of the Court, provisions referring to exchange rate tables, allowing the bank to freely, determine the rate at which it converts the liabilities of its clients, are also prohibited.
The District Court also ruled that the bank’s claims for the return of the loan principal, i.e. related to its business activities, became statute-barred after 3 years from the day following the payment of the principal amount. The court stated that since the loan agreement with abusive provisions had been invalid from the moment of its conclusion (ex tunc), the bank’s limitation period for the return of the paid-out capital begun on the day following its disbursement.
As a consequence, the District Court dismissed the bank’s claim for the reimbursement of the principal amount of the loan with interest by the client of Włodarczyk Ziomek & Wojciechowski s.c. This judgment is not final.
