Filenews 12 January 2022 - by Eleftheria Paizanos
One legal obstacle after another arises in the parliament's effort to cover very small businesses from the provisions of the law on unfair terms in contracts with banks.
The draft of the bill prepared by the Financial Commissioner Pavlos Ioannou ultimately does not successfully or completely address the problems of unconstitutionality that the Supreme Court had identified a few years ago, when the Parliament had approved a relevant law proposal of the parties and which was deemed unconstitutional.NEW
With the draft bill of Mr. Ioannou, the scope of the law is limited and covers businesses with an annual turnover of up to € 2 million. and with up to five employees. It is worth noting that the bill was prepared when the previous Parliament was debating the harmonizing multi-bill by which natural persons are covered by the unfair terms of the banks. Last April, the opposition parties were preparing to table amendments to the multi-bill to shield micro-enterprises as well, however, in order to prevent the risk of a fine being imposed on the Republic for delaying harmonisation with the acquis communautaire on consumer issues and for not being properly harmonized or even unconstitutional, the executive asked for the original bill to be approved as it was and assured the House that it would soon submit a bill to cover micro-enterprises as well. This, however, has not been done so far, as the draft bill was judged to address legal issues.
The issue came back to the forefront during yesterday's debate in the House on the increases imposed by the banks on charges. The Deputy Director of the Consumer Protection Service of the Ministry of Energy, Antonis Ioannou, said that he sent a relevant letter to the Ministry of Finance, asking to be informed about the developments that exist in relation to the bill to cover small businesses with unfair terms.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Finance reiterated that he is in favour of legal coverage and micro-enterprises, but, he said, there are legal problems. According to the ministry spokeswoman, the draft of the bill prepared by the Commissioner includes the same unconstitutional regulations that the court found in the past in its decision when the House attempted to shield micro-enterprises. As he said, this is a legal issue.
The financial commissioner, Pavlos Ioannou, intervened immediately, stating that in his statements to the Parliament he explained the constitutional obstacles that arise, stressing, however, that there is a way out for very small businesses to be covered by the legislation. As he said, he prepared a relevant note which is at the disposal of the members of the House Standing Committee on Energy.
Small increase in amounts of unsecured cheques in 2021
After three years of declines, the value of unsecured cheques registered in 2021 in the preliminary list of the Central Information Archive (CAP) of the Central Bank of Cyprus (CMP) showed an increase, reaching €0.93 million, compared to €0.74 million. the previous year. According to the data of the NCC, the number of unsecured cheques registered in the preliminary list decreased to 363 in 2021 from 454 in the previous year.
In the last month of 2021, the value of the uncovered uncovered listed in the preliminary list amounted to €250,506, which is more than double the amount since November 2021 (€97,696) and more than four times the corresponding month of 2020 (€51,231).
The registrations of legal and natural persons in the preliminary list fell to 99 and 95 respectively for the whole of 2021 compared to 147 and 129 respectively in the previous year.
At the same time, registrations of legal entities in the CFP in 2021 decreased to 58 from 66 in 2020, while the registrations of natural persons increased to 50 from 40 in 2020. 71 natural persons controlling legal entities were also registered in the CAP, with the total number of registrations in 2021 standing at 179 compared to 324 in the previous year.
