Month: February 2017

The head of GWW’s Private Client team, Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, has been accepted as member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), London Branch (there is no STEP branch yet in Poland).

The Society brings together established and highly experienced advisors dealing with financial and estate planning as well as advisory for family companies (more on step.org).

Full STEP members, such as Aldona Leszczyńska-Mikulska, are known as TEPs. Such professionals are internationally considered to be key experts in their fields and the TEP designation is a confirmation of their qualifications and experience.

On 31 January 2017, the District Court for Warsaw-Mokotów in Warsaw agreed with the arguments of the attorney at law, Urszula Darkowska, and issued a favourable judgment for mortgage customers of Millennium Bank. The Court decided that:

• the Bank should refund the commission fees paid thus far; and
• the commission provisions grossly violate consumer interests and are not binding on consumers as prohibited (abusive) clauses.

COMMENT | Urszula Darkowska, attorney at law (admitted as radca prawny), heading GWW’s litigation practice in Warsaw:

It is clear from the oral explanations justifying the judgment that the Court agreed with us that the commission clauses should be deemed abusive. The Court stressed that it is unacceptable for a consumer to pay a commission fee without any certainty as to how the Bank will use it, including whether the Bank will use it to lower the risk related to low down payment at all.

The judgment is good news for mortgage customers of Millennium Bank, who agreed to replace low down payment insurance with the commission fee. Commission clauses are an obvious example of a gross violation of consumer’s economic interests by banks. And this judgment is the first one to confirm it.