The Pan-Slovenian Shareholders' Association (VZMD), has filed three lawsuits through law office on Friday, January 17. The three lawsuits were filed against the banks at the District Courts in Ljubljana and Maribor, and they were filed in the name of 349 owners. By filing these three lawsuits VZMD has requested that the two District Courts declare the nullity of the simplified reduction and simultaneous increase of the banks' nominal capital, by which all the owners of subordinated bonds and shares of these banks have been expropriated. At this moment VZMD cannot yet reveal details of the lawsuit strategies and legal bases for them, but they have been formed as a result of cooperation between VZMD expert assistants and top experts in the field of register law.
Act amending Banking Act (ZBan-1L), which was – in spite of the official negative opinions of some acclaimed legal experts and the veto of the National Council of the Republic of Slovenia – for the second time approved by the National Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia, literally prohibits the expropriated subordinated bank creditors from suing the debtor banks because of their expropriation. This is in striking contrast with provisions regarding bond prospectuses which define such lawsuits as basic legal remedies in case prospectus provisions have been violated, therefore the authors of Act amending Banking Act (ZBan-1L) have added to it a paragraph which declares all such prospectus provisions void. Legal protection of the bank subordinated creditors has thus practically ceased to exist.
The constitutional principle which says that everyone has the constitutional right to a legal remedy has thus been very obviously and radically violated. Therefore the ZBan-1L authors have tried to conceal this violation by introducing a provision which says that it is possible to bring a lawsuit against the Bank of Slovenia, but the lawsuit is to be filed by a bank itself. It is absurd because (even if we disregard the fact that members of a bank's Management Board are appointed by The Bank of Slovenia, which can also remove them from their post at any time) the cancellation of a bank's subordinated debt means that a bank benefits from it and it is not at a loss, therefore a Court is not supposed to approve a legal interest for a lawsuit against this cancellation.
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