BayernLB wins the billion lawsuit against Hypo Alpe Adria – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Legal Success for Landesbank Bavaria: Munich Regional Court has sentenced the Austrian mining Heta Bank for repayment of loans plus interest for more than two billion euros to BayernLB. The Heta, which was formerly known as the Hypo Alpe Adria (HGAA) a BayernLB subsidiary, these amounts should not be substituted for capital reserve in spite of their plight, the Munich Regional Court ruled on Friday.

In order for the process ended after one and a half years with a bang. A decision had not yet actually expected, since the morning, two assessors were interviewed. Furthermore, the judgment is not yet final – and the legal dispute is likely to continue in the next instance. Both sides had already indicated earlier that they are going in an unfavorable decision for them to appeal to the Higher Regional Court of Munich.

The decision refers to loans of more than one billion euros and more than one billion Swiss francs. However, a part of the BayernLB case was dismissed, said Judge Gesa Lutz. The Austrian Ministry of Finance declined to comment first. A Heta spokesman announced an opinion for later.

In the process it was whether the Heta billion loans to the Bayern must repay or may keep for their plight. Hypo Alpe Adria once belonged to BayernLB and had received approximately 2.4 billion Euro in Munich at this time. The end of 2012 she set the repayments but with reference to their own plight and refused since then, despite several requests to transfer the money.

ripple effect on other banks

The Austrians appealed to the Austrian equity substitution law, on the basis of which the German court would decide. In the process, the Heta defended with every means against the billion-dollar repayment. The lawyers for the Austrian banking brought himself on Friday yet new attacks and questioned the competence of an expert, which the judges had instructed.

In the meantime, the Austria’s handling of the remains of HGAA also concerns a number of other banks in Germany, since the country has decided two months ago to handle even the HGAA Abwicklungsanstalt called Heta and for the time being to make any more debt payments. The Munich judgment could be because of some fundamental rights issues have also a signal to those banks that have three-digit million sums in Heta in the fire partially.

This affects, among others, the Commerzbank , the Hypo Real Estate , HypoVereinsbank and insurers Munich Re and Allianz . On the advice of the financial institutions concerned had to be halved in the past few weeks the value of their bonds and loans in Heta. The BayernLB wrote the value of their receivables from already half and closed the year 2014 from a billion loss.

Austria had the ailing Hypo Alpe Adria withdrawn in 2009 after billions in losses by BayernLB and only nationalized and finally settled.