It has been a while since our last post, but things have been fairly quiet in the litigation front, save for Landsbanki’s cases.
Undeterred by recent rotund judicial response against Equity Release contracts, liquidators for the Icelandic defunct financial predator remain undeterred and a still trying to collect their investments or, if needed, steal pensioners’ properties from under their feet.
For Landsbanki, cunning has become a second nature and consequently, their very latest devious strategy is to contest the jurisdiction of Spanish Courts in favour of the bank-friendly tribunals of Luxembourg, invoking EU-bankruptcy laws.
So far though, ERVA lawyers have managed to throw out no less than 8 motions filed by Landsbanki to have the cases relocated to Luxembourg Courts. The Courts involved are in the Malaga, Almeria and Alicante provinces.
2 further motions were accepted by the Courts but are likely to be reversed on appeal.
On finding in favour of the victims of the equity release fraud, the Courts upheld existing case law on the matter (two rulings of the Court of Appeal of Malaga of 2013 and 2015) as well as legal precepts invoked by the counsel of the victims.
Specifically, the Courts have convened that:
- EU-bankruptcy laws do not apply to contracts signed by consumers, who still have the right to choose to litigate where they live.
- EU-bankruptcy laws do not apply to legal agreements or contracts that were entered with the company prior to it becoming insolvent.
- Spanish laws grant exclusive jurisdiction to national Courts where dispute over property registered rights is concerned.
