V/I Weekly Roundup 3.10.19

Below find the highlights from the week as well as stories that will be developing in the near future.

ECJ strikes down unfair loans: In a landmark decision, the European Court of Justice ruled today that Polish banks misled clients and inserted abusive clauses into mortgage agreements that were denominated in Swiss francs. Since many years Swiss-franc borrowers have been affected by the weakened zloty, which has resulted in high repayments and even the risk of widespread default on Swiss-denominated mortgages. While the government had tried to force Polish banks to strengthen their capital buffers and convert loans taken out in Swiss francs into zloty on favourable terms, the impact of these decisions remained limited. The ECJ decision now gives strong backing to the affected borrowers but also means there will be shock waves through banks and it may drive down their share prices. The Ministry of Finance has stated it is monitoring the banking sector and will take actions if necessary.

Czech PM out of the woods: After a Czech attorney dropped fraud charges against Andrej Babiš last month, the Regional Council of Central Bohemia has halted now another infringement procedure against the Prime Minister. Previously, the local municipality where Babiš is registered had identified a conflict of interest and suggested a 200,000 crowns fine for the offence. The Regional Council’s decision to overturn this conclusion lacked justification and was immediately questioned by the opposition, which noted that the Council is dominated by the political party of Babiš.

Grassroots initative against disinformation and ad frauds: Industry associations in Poland joined forces to promote reliable information and advertising. According to ABT Shield, one of the initiative takers, phenomena such as hate speech, online troll activity, so-called “fake news” and artificial advertising traffic generated by automated systems are a threat to the economic freedom of media and the reliability of information.