* Gheorghe Piperea: The important thing is that the bank will need to return the money to its customers
* Volksbank Romania will challenge the ruling of the court of Bucharest
Customers of Volksbank Romania who filed a lawsuit against the bank, due to the abusive commissions and the method used for calculating the interest rate in Romania, yesterday saw a ruling rendered in their favor, according to lawyer Gheorghe Piperea, who was representing them.
He said: "The independence of judges is the best guarantee against the unlimited power of corporations. The aggressive PR of Volksbank did not matter, because the people had justice on their side".
Lawyer Gheorghe Piperea said that the court decided to eliminate the risk commission and other commissions with "strange" names, as well as the elimination of the clause for the adjustment of interest. He went on to say that the Effective Annual Interest rate (DAE) was cut from 12% to 4-5%.
What is important is that Volksbank Romania will have to give customers their money back, according to lawyer Gheorghe Piperea.
When it comes to the damages which the customers of Volksbank Romania will be paid, he said that an exact figure is difficult to mention, but he estimates that each customer will receive approximately 4,000 - 5,000 Euros.
From his point of view, the best thing the bank could do would be to propose, starting tomorrow (ed. note: today), a solution to avoid any future lawsuits. Still, lawyer Gheorghe Piperea expects the bank to continue the fight, resorting to various avenues of attack to have the ruling suspended.
* Volksbank România: "We won't deny the fact that the bank did not act perfectly in the past, in its relationship with its customers"
"We will appeal this ruling because we feel that it violates an important principle of law: that of the contract
