The Provincial Court of Asturias declared the credit card contract signed with the entity Oney Servicios Financieros EFC (Alcampo Card) in 2004 null and void, taking into account the usurious interest rate of 20.4 APR. Therefore, 18 years later, the court ordered the financial institution to repay the plaintiff the principal amount of 4,400 euros plus legal interest, in accordance with article 3 of the usury law of 23 July 1908.
It should be remembered that a usury contract is the practice of charging exorbitant interest on a loan, so that the financial institution that is supposed to lend it can make an unfair profit.
Interest rates
Sara Bernardo Fonseca, plaintiff defence lawyer of the firm Bernardo Abogados, pointed out that the relevant content of the resolution "confirms the criterion established in the previous judgment of the Provincial Court of 3 October 2022, establishing the transcendence as a reference to identify whether a rate is usury or not, which is the BDE The average interest rate published by the (Spanish bank) at the time of signing the contract ", which corresponds to the category corresponding to the credit business (revolving card)", explained the lawyer.
And, considering that the issuance of this particular category did not exist in the indices published by the EDB prior to 2010, the court ruled that, at the time of contracting, the most similar category was consumer credit, as consolidated in the absence of a more specific category, cards that fall into this more general category.
The chamber of commerce does not consider the proposals of the financial institutions to be sufficient, as they lack reliability and rigour, and there are no expert reports.
Statute of limitations
On the other hand, the court also ruled on the statute of limitations, holding that the action for nullity of usury cannot be separated from the patrimonial consequences of the declaration, since according to Sara Bernardo, if there is a statute of limitations to return the amount derived from the declaration of nullity, the declaration of Power will be left blank.
Ultimately, the court declared the bank card contract between the plaintiff and the financial institution null and void and ordered the plaintiff to repay 4,000 euros plus interest.
Likewise, the lawyer emphasised that "with such a judgement, any doubts that may still exist about the interpretation of the judgements handed down by the Supreme Court (SC) in May 2022 and October 2022 disappear", without being treated as doctrinal jurisprudence (declaring that the average interest on the cards for the decade 1999-2009 was between 23% and 26%), because it must be understood that the declaration of "TS" made on the basis of the facts recognised in the Appeal Judgment, has nothing to do with the Appeal, evidence for the new assessment", he concludes.
At Confijulab We can advise and guide you through this process so that you can recover the interest on bad usurious practices.
