Filip Wojciechowski

District Court in Warsaw in a case brought by borrowers against mBank S.A. (the legal successor of the BRE Bank S.A.), in the judgment of 30 July 2021 case no. II C 2905/20, 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 borrowers-consumers in a manner that is contrary to good practices, grossly violating their interests.

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.

In its judgments of June 10th, 2021 in a case C-609/19 and in joined cases C-776/19 to C-782/19 (BNP Paribas Personal Finance), the CJEU stated that:

1) a consumer who has taken out a loan denominated in a foreign currency and who does not know that a term in the loan agreement is unfair cannot be subject to any limitation period for the repayment of sums paid on the basis of that term,

2) the information provided by the lender to the consumer concerning the existence of a foreign exchange risk does not satisfy the requirement of transparency if it is based on the assumption that the exchange rate between the account currency and the payment currency will remain stable throughout the term of the agreement.