Background

After taking out foreign currency bullet loans, the borrower entered insolvency proceedings in 2019 and the lender filed a claim for the outstanding amount of the loan, including interest in the insolvency. 

Despite the borrower arguing before the insolvency proceedings that the interest calculated by the lender and (partially) paid by the borrower was higher than agreed, the claims filed by the lender were subsequently accepted by the borrower’s insolvency administrator and not disputed by the borrower. 

Decision

After the insolvency proceedings, the borrower demanded the repayment of interest payments made in the amount of roughly €180,000, arguing that the interest paid was higher than agreed. 

While the Austrian Supreme Court denied the borrower's claim for repayment based on the statute of limitation, it also clarified that the acceptance of claims in insolvency proceedings has only limited effect.

Essentially, the Supreme Court held that:

• The acceptance of claims in insolvency proceedings is not binding in relation to the question of whether the lender was entitled to receive the interest paid by the borrower before the insolvency proceedings were opened.
• Consequently, the borrower may be entitled to repayment, if the interest paid by the borrower was indeed higher than agreed, despite the claims of the lender for the outstanding amount of the loan (including interest) being accepted in the insolvency proceedings. 

Find out more

To discuss the issues raised in this article in more detail, please contact a member of our Restructuring and Insolvency team.

Austrian Supreme Court (4Ob174/24b)