Except for last minute changes, the Government plans to approve the Minister council of the next Tuesday the creation of the Authority Independent Administrative of Financial Client Defensewith which the Ministry of Economy intends to revolutionize the current public system of resolution of claims to banks, insurers and investment firms. Both fundamental aspects of the bill they will not vary in principle with respect to the preliminary draft of last April. So, their decisions will be binding for entities (not for clients) when the amount claimed does not exceed the €20,000 and the new organism will be financed with a rate 250 euros per complaint received that entities will pay.
The council of state sent this Thursday to the department that directs Nadia Calvino its opinion non-binding and the matter has already gone through the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries, which prepares the issues that will be submitted for deliberation by the Council of Ministers. Economy has not received the report of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), but the organic law of the judiciary enable to move on when the governing body of judges has not issued its report in the expected deadlines. The CGPJ appointed on October 13 Wenceslas Oleacontentious-administrative magistrate of the supreme courtto prepare the report, but in principle it does not plan to submit the matter to its plenary session until at least december because it is common for jobs to be flattered in matters of this magnitude, reports Ángeles Vázquez.
Once endorsed by the Government, the project will go to the Parliament so that the chambers introduce the changes they deem appropriate and approve them definitively. Calviño stated a few weeks ago that he is confident that the law creating the new authority will receive the final green light along the first semester of the next year. The vice president plans to accompany her approval in the Council of Ministers with that of the royal decree that will articulate the plan to help those mortgaged in trouble due to the escalation of the Euribor that they have been negotiating for weeks economy and the banking with the advice of Bank of Spain. This was pointed out by Calviño this Friday, after affirming that he hopes to reach an agreement “in the next few hours”.
The key aspect
The new authority will resolve the claims that up to now have been filed with the Bank of Spainthe National Stock Market Commission (CNMV) and the General Directorate of Insurance and Pension Funds. The fact that their decisions are going to be binding on claims up to 20,000 euros is a major change, since the opinions of the three supervisors sectoral regulations are not mandatory, which makes them ignored by entities in high percentages.
The Economic and social Counciladvisory body of the Government in socioeconomic and labor matters, asked Economy a few weeks ago that the opinions are always binding for the entities, whatever the amount claimed. Instead, the bank employers and the CEOE consider unconstitutional that are going to be mandatory and have demanded that, if maintained, the bar be lowered for the 20,000 euros to 5,000.
Except for last-minute changes, Economy has decided to keep it. “You have to come to a Balance between solving the problem and discharge to the courtson the one hand, and keep the legal security. If we raise it a lot, the number of claims that would come in could exceed any estimate. We want control the flow well and calibrate it well,” ministry sources argued in the spring.
National audience
The pronouncements of the new body may be challenge before the contentious-administrative chamber of the National audience. If the entities manage to agree with them, the client will have to return the recovered amount even if the opinions are binding (even if such clients they will not assume as now the legal costs, but the Authority will). With this, the Government wanted to guarantee the Right to effective judicial protection included in the Constitution. In any case, consider unlikely that the court decides, with an unfavorable resolution of the Authority, to grant the reason to entity.
According to the latest draft of the Economy, to which this newspaper had access, the directors and managers of financial entities (banks, insurers, investment firms and consumer lenders, among other companies) that fail to comply its binding resolutions may be penalized with up 250,000 euros (minor infractions) or up to a million euros (serious offences). The latter, in addition, may receive a “public reprimand” with the publication in the Official State Gazette (BOE) of your identity, the nature of the infraction and the sanction imposed.
sanctions and budget
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That text also established that the Authority may set a compensation from the entity to the customer between 100 and 2,000 euros when the claim does not have economic content (for example, the failure to provide pre-contractual information or the failure to open a basic payment account). Likewise, it was lowered from 1,000 to 500 euros the maximum fine that they will be able to bear the customers who repeatedly submit claims over six months that are manifestly unfounded and inadmissible. The CES has asked to eliminate this sanction, since it understands that “said assumptions are exceptional and, in any case, they could be detected and resolved by the Authority in the preliminary investigation phase”.
The organism, which emanates from a European directive of 2013is part of the reforms promised to the UE for this year in exchange for community funds, but it is not necessary for it to be created, it is enough for the European Commission to receive significant advances in that direction. Economy has left open in the draft 2023 budgets that a game can be enabled to start it up. The ministry estimates that the body will have a annual expenditure of about 21,075 million euros (15.68 million to pay the salaries of its 250 employees, 1.26 million for operating expenses, and 3.97 million for expenses in information technology and communications) and will obtain some income of about 25.58 million by the rates that the entities will pay. The initial budget item, in any case, will be higher due to the extraordinary expenses involved in its implementation.