BETWEEN TERMINATION, NULL AND CONVERSION-CASE „CHF”

Abstract

Currency indexation found its place in the Serbian legal system by amending the Law on Obligations in 1993, as a result of major economic and inflationary pressures.

The law permitted the contracting of loans in which the liability could be tied to a foreign currency, and payment was made on a daily basis accord-ing to the parity of that currency with the local currency. This type of cur-rency indexation has protective character in order to maintain the true value and equality of mutual benefits between the parties. The negotiation of a Swiss franc hedge has caused economic, social and political upheavals in recent decades. The obligations of the beneficiaries of these loans increased unexpectedly many times, causing them to delay, the banks activated the collateral and these loans soon reached the list of NPLs. Users formed proce-dures through formed associations to protect their rights, but the direction could not be clearly differentiated. Some insisted that the currency clause itself was null and void, while others demanded termination of the contract. The proceedings were conducted in parallel on both grounds with very het-erogeneous case law. The authors of the paper provide an overview of the basic premises used by the beneficiaries of these loans, significant legal sources that guided the final resolution of these problematic loans, and pay particular attention to a legislative solution aimed at sending them to history.