WALLESS Attorneys Joana Baublytė-Kulvietė and Lina Radavičienė Successfully Defended Interests of Luminor Bank in CJEU

WALLESS attorneys Joana Baublytė-Kulvietė and Lina Radavičienė successfully defended interests of Luminor bank (Lithuania; ex DNB) in the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).

The CJEU was approached by the Vilnius Regional Court which is hearing a case concerning bank’s offering of index-linked bonds to four individual investors. While most of the disputes between the bank and its clients concerning the alleged mis-selling of index-linked bonds were closed several years ago, this case was one of the last-hope attempts to overrule the precedents established by the Lithuanian courts. The CJEU was asked to issue a preliminary ruling related to a number of EU Directives and Regulations, including those concerning investment services (MiFID), consumer rights protection, market abuse, information contained in prospectuses and other.

On 16th May 2019 the CJEU ruled in favour of the bank. In its preliminary ruling the CJEU fully supported the position of the bank and explained that several of the Directives referred to by the national court do not apply to the relations in concern on ratione temporis basis, while with respect to a number of other EU legal acts referred to by the national court, CJEU even refused to accept and analyse the questions stating that the national court failed to substantiate relevance of the questions to the case of the national court. The interpretation of the CJEU provides valuable insights on the application of the relevant EU law on investor protection and related matters.