For the first time in Romania, a company and a financial and banking institution negotiated their grievances with the aid of the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre (ABDRC) and thus stayed out of the court of law. Meanwhile, tens of lawsuits in different stage of the proceedings are dropped either at the request of consumers or at the recommendation of banks for their underlying disputes to be further settled amicably with the help of an ABDRC conciliator. For legal entities, ABDRC may only help them settle disputes that concern payment services/instruments or electronic money issuing.

23 February, Bucharest. For the first time in Romania, a company and a financial and banking institution negotiated their grievances with the aid of the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre (ABDRC) and thus stayed out of the court of law. Meanwhile, tens of lawsuits in different stage of the proceedings are dropped either at the request of consumers or at the recommendation of banks for their underlying disputes to be further settled amicably with the help of an ABDRC conciliator. For legal entities, ABDRC may only help them settle disputes that concern payment services/instruments or electronic money issuing.

Currency exchange, a reason for conciliation

Peter Papp pipelines an investment of approximately EUR 1 million in Harghita. The transfer of more than HUF 100 million is done by converting this amount in EUR equivalent. The premises of a dispute (the choice of the transfer accounts) that could have easily ended up before a court of law were defused in a conciliation the two parties paid a total of approximately RON 990 for.

Peter Papp, company director: I will invest big in Harghita. I will build a boarding house. By mistake, I transferred forints into the EUR account. The bank operated the conversion automatically, without advising me and at an unfavourable rate of exchange, and for that transfer, the rate of exchange caused me a loss of EUR 20,000. Fortunately, I dealt with an understanding BCR and I manged to recover EUR 15,000 after only a 2 weeks’ negotiation. Another good thing was that BCR told me we could address this matter via ABDRC. Thus, the bank proved to be a fair business partner for me. I extend my thanks to Mr. Mircea Stroe, the case conciliator. He proved a good understanding of my problem and willingness to see it resolved, and this showed in how he conducted the negotiation and recommended the bank to come up with a better offer. He is an exquisite professional.

Dana Dima (Demetrian), Vice President of BCR: I am happy that we kicked off this process for legal entities via ABDRC because is a big step not only for companies, but also for the banking system. Conciliation per se aims to render more effective the business relationship, and is an ethical endeavour that we all strive for; in this end of the day, it is also a piece of financial education. Such a process proposed by ABDRC makes the most of the time, financial resources and legal resources we are all bound to set side for potential disputes. What we actually gain out of it is a long-term relationship with our customers, who enjoy the benefits of such a conciliation. We all need to have faith in conciliators because they master extensive expertise. Taking this step towards conciliation is a sign of responsibility.

Mircea Stroe, ABDRC conciliator: Both parties understood from the start – and we did explain them – that a favourable solution demands for mutual concessions. It is important that such disputes do not bring the business mechanics to a deadlock. In the corporate dynamics, disputes stemming from this kind of disagreements must be addressed as expeditiously as possible, and not add to the years-long court caseload. Money needs to flow, not get stuck in administrative and court proceedings that cause losses to all the parties involved.

Tens of lawsuits between consumers and banks dropped. Parties favour conciliation

This case, as it has happened before, would have found settlement in court. Fortunately, the two parties chose to resolve it amicably. Such situations, where the bank feels that law is on their side and the business partner feels they have been punished top harsh for a simple mistake can occur in any business partnership. In fact, conciliation manages to bring them closer together and reconcile such diverging opinions. In theory, ABDRC has started to provide conciliation between legal entities two years ago, but some mechanisms sometimes seem too useful to be true. This could be why we have third first-ever conciliation between legal entities in Romania only now. In these two years in which our services have been available also for legal entities, the Centre has only received 9 conciliation applications from companies. Virtually all of them concern the cost of loans and not payment services/instruments or electronic money issuing, the only two categories the law allows us to submit to negotiation.

We also see a refreshing trend: increasingly more lawsuits between consumers and banks are dropped because the parties chose amicable settlement via ABDRC. This happened 67 times last year. This year, in only one and a half months, 20 lawsuits have already been dropped for this reason. The choice of ABDRC resulted in resolutions that repaid various amounts of money to consumers. This is one of the recommendations we made to banks early this year: to settle as many consumer grievances as possible through negotiation before or even after these were brought up before courts”, says Alexandru Păunescu, member of ABDRC Steering Board.

RESOURCES:

Watch a video with the opinions of the parties involved in this case here:

ABDRC may provide conciliation for grievances between legal entities and financial and banking institutions only on matters related to payment services and electronic money issuing.

Find more information here:

Law No 209/2019: https://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocumentAfis/219736

Law No 210/2019: https://legislatie.just.ro/Public/DetaliiDocumentAfis/219752

About ABDRC: ABDRC is an entity set up under a European Directive, and intermediates, free of charge and in not more than three months, negotiations between consumers and banks or NBFIs, for contracts/agreements in progress. Consumers from any county of the country may file applications with the Alternative Banking Dispute Resolution Centre (ABDRC) filling-in an online form directly on the website www.csalb.ro. Once the bank accepts to enter the conciliation/negotiation procedure, a conciliator is appointed. ABDRC works with 19 conciliators, of the best specialists in law and with relevant experience also in the financial and banking field. Everything is settled amicably, and the understanding between the parties has the power of court judgment. More information about the work of the Centre is available by phone at 021 9414 (charged a normal rate).