Goran Aleksic of the Franak association of former holders of Swiss franc-pegged loans said on Saturday that in its two latest decisions, the Constitutional Court ruled in favour of clients who had converted their loans, adding that Franak had a legitimate right to have their contracts proven null and void.

The Constitutional Court has dismissed two claims by Addiko and PBZ banks, confirming that lower courts and the Supreme Court were right to confirm that bank clients have the right to ask that provisions from their original contracts be declared invalid after the conversion of contracts to euro-denominated ones in 2015 and 2016, he said.

“This is the first case that concerns clients who have converted their loans,” Aleksic said at a news conference at which his association informed the public about the latest decisions of the Constitutional Court, which are important for clients with converted loans.

Aleksic said that in one of the two cases, the client was awarded compensation for overpaid interest in the amount of €13,000.

He said that the two rulings by the Constitutional Court met the remaining necessary requirements for the Supreme Court to be able to rule if clients with converted loans, in addition to having the nullity of the contracts determined, also have the right to compensation based on the exemption of the invalid variable interest rate and the invalid currency clause in the original CHF loan contract if compensation was not effected through conversion.

“The many experts’ reports presented before first-instance courts in dozens of cases have determined in every single case that compensation was not effected through loan conversion,” Aleksic said.

This means, he said, that nullity never expires and that one has the right to refer to it indefinitely.

“There is no settlement or an annex that would remove the nullity originating from the beginning of the contractual relationship,” he said.

Despite this, he said, the Supreme Court has still not decided on the right of bank clients to full compensation.

“We expect Supreme Court judges to finally agree on bank clients’ rights, based on the Constitution, laws and EU law, and not based on non-existent bank rights,” he said.

Aleksic expressed hope that judges “will get down to work” and resolve the two remaining legal dilemmas.

One is the right to compensation after conversion based on the exemption of invalid provisions in the original contracts and the other is the issue of nullity of entire contracts with the invalid variable interest rate and invalid currency clause, Aleksic said.

Large number of clients with converted loans have sued banks

Speaking on behalf of the association, attorney Igor Metelko said that a large number of clients with converted loans had sued banks.

“We believe the figure is around 40,000, to which one should add around 20,000 claims by clients who have not converted their loans,” Metelko said.

He said that those cases were still pending because the judges themselves did not want to make decisions and were waiting for the Supreme Court to harmonise legal positions.

“A decision should have been made back in December, three legal positions were adopted but none eventually took root, which only testifies to how big this legal issue is, huge amounts of money are at stake. We call on Supreme Court judges to abide by the law and not think about who will get how much money and who will lose it,” said Metelko.