法律研究

Shift of competence in banking supervision

The federal government has decided to reform the supervision of banks in a ministerial council on 21.11.2018. The supervision of banks will be almost completely under the competence of the Financial Market Authority (FMA). The competences of the Austrian National bank (OeNB) in this area will be shifted to the FMA. The Office for the Supervision of Audits (OePR) at the OeNB will continue to supervise the audit of balance sheets of capital market-oriented companies. Also, the FMA will hand over balance sheets compliance enforcement to the Authority responsible for the supervision of auditors (APAB). APAB was previously only responsible for the supervision of the auditors. By the middle of 2019 the reform will be legalized; by the end of 2019 organizational changes will be implemented.

2018年11月26日

免费已成明日黄花

Banks weren’t allowed to charge fees for cash withdrawal of their consumer customers at third party ATMs. The Austrian Constitutional Court ruled on 09.10.2018 that this is unconstitutional. The provision violates the right to property: Independent third-party-providers of ATMs were able to set their charges freely. Charges which had to be paid by banks issuing the cards. While doing so the ATM providers and the banks did not even have a contract with each other. The annulment is effective immediately – i.e. as of the publishing in the Austrian Federal Law Gazette (G 9/2018-24, G 10/2018-27).

2018年10月26日

储蓄账户须与支付账户严格区分

Since the entering into force of the VZKG in 2016, offering so called payment accounts to consumers comes with different obligations – which become more and more burdensome every year. The ECJ has recently ruled that certain saving accounts cannot be classified as payment accounts. The decisive criterion was that the savings accounts in question required an intermediary account. A payment account according to the Payment Services Directive must enable payment transactions to and from third parties. (ECJ C-191/17).

2018年10月12日

公开发行的金融产品销售方与发行方负有相同法律责任

Recently a ruling of the Supreme Court for Civil Matters was made about prospectus liabilities: Basically, issuers that publicly offer certain investments and securities must publish a prospectus. Nevertheless, providers other than the issuer who offered these financial products are also liable for the compliance with the prospectus obligations. With this new ruling the term provider is extended further. The regulations of the capital market act are interpreted in a way, that everyone who informs the investing public and to whom the information is attributed to is a provider (6 Ob 97/18k).

2018年9月28日

明确第三方费用

In a recent case, the Supreme Court for Civil Matters declares a clause of general terms and conditions of a bank as invalid which contained the phrase “Expenses of third-parties shall be passed on.”. The clause in question is non-transparent for the average consumer because it is listed among services of the bank itself such as reminder fees, fees for re-ordering of debit cards etc. This way the consumer gets the impression that charges of third parties have to be paid in any case. It is not clear for the consumer whether the expenses of third-parties are charged for outsourced services of the bank or for third-party services directly. According to the ruling, third-party expenses which are passed on have to be comprehensibly specified (1Ob57/18s).

2018年9月14日