Lexitor Wins at the CJEU
Lexitor – CJEU Case C-383/18
On September 11, 2019 – after a judicial proceeding lasting over a year in which Lexitor Sp. z o.o. was a party – the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg issued a judgment regarding the interpretation of Article 49 of the Consumer Credit Act in conjunction with Article 16(1) of the European Parliament and Council Directive 2008/48/EC of April 23, 2008, on credit agreements for consumers, which repealed Council Directive 87/102/EEC (Official Journal 2008, L133, p. 66; corrections: Official Journal 2009, L 207, p. 14; Official Journal 2010, L199, p. 40; Official Journal 2011, L 234, p. 46).
We remind that the dispute concerned whether the credit commission and other credit costs should be subject to settlement and partial refund to the borrower in the event of early repayment of a consumer credit. Financial institutions maintained that the credit commission as a fee not related to the credit period should not be refunded. On our part, we argued that the obligation to reduce the cost of credit in connection with its early repayment should also include the commission, which especially in the Polish context is collected by financial institutions in high amounts, even multiple times the interest.
The Court of Justice ultimately agreed with our Company by adopting the view that: “Article 16(1) of the European Parliament and Council Directive 2008/48/EC of April 23, 2008, on credit agreements for consumers and repealing Council Directive 87/102/EEC should be interpreted in such a way that the consumer’s right to a reduction of the total cost of credit in the event of early repayment of the credit includes all costs that were imposed on the consumer.”
We treat the CJEU’s decision as a significant success for our Company, which confirms the correctness of our previous actions, and at the same time, this ruling should have significant effects for all consumers in Poland who have repaid a consumer credit ahead of schedule.
