The guarantee, and the guarantee given free of charge in particular A guarantee (suretyship) is a person's undertaking (the guarantor) to secure another's debts (the debtor) for the benefit of a creditor. If the debtor defaults, the creditor, which may be a bank, may call on the guarantor to pay what the debtor fails to... Continue Reading →

An interest rate of 15.40% per year? In our review of Belgian banking case law for 2019, we came across numerous decisions on the application of high default interest rates, in a context of generally low market rates. The interest rate applied by a bank has been debated for decades. In a case before the... Continue Reading →

The Belgian Act of 20 December 2020 on temporary and structural provisions in matters of justice in the context of the fight against the spread of Covid-19 affects attachments until at least 31 January 2021. Among the measures adopted: a temporary increase of the non-attachable thresholds (Article 1409 of the Judicial Code) and an extension... Continue Reading →

The Brussels attachment judge, rarely enough to be worth noting, considered a bank's termination of an investment credit granted to a business in 2010 and repayable monthly over 20 years. The business was only one instalment in arrears at the time of termination. The business had opposed the order preceding executory attachment on the mortgaged... Continue Reading →

A new funding-loss judgment from the Court of Cassation (Dutch-speaking division) of 18 June 2020. In an earlier article, we reported the Cassation judgment of 27 April on the features distinguishing interest-bearing loans from credit facilities, and the possible recharacterisation of a credit as a loan. In this new judgment, the Court ruled on an... Continue Reading →

A bank is sued in liability by the joint and indivisible guarantor of a company's obligations, for having liquidated his securities portfolio, whereas the later liquidation of the debtor company would ultimately repay the bank's claim in full. The starting point: enforcing a joint and indivisible guarantee In the 1990s, Mr F., manager of a... Continue Reading →

Under Article 1 of Royal Decree No. 15 of 24 April 2020 on a temporary moratorium for businesses on enforcement and other measures during the Covid-19 crisis, it was no longer permitted, until 17 June, to seek a business's bankruptcy as a creditor, to levy a protective or executory attachment, or to terminate a credit... Continue Reading →

The Act of 11 August 2017 inserting Book XX "Insolvency of Businesses" into the Code of Economic Law aims to reform and rationalise insolvency law, notably in view of EU legislation, bringing together the Bankruptcy Act of 8 August 1997 and the Business Continuity Act of 31 January 2009 under a single codification. The legislature... Continue Reading →