Issues on establishing a common practice for application of penalties discussed with representatives of credit organisations

Today, First Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Artur Hovhannisyan received representatives of more than a dozen credit organisations operating in Armenia.

Director of the "Centre for Legislation Development and Legal Research" Foundation of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia Tigran Markosyan, representatives of the Central Bank and experts of the Foundation also participated in the meeting.

Artur Hovhannisyan greeted the attendees, expressed gratitude to the representatives of the credit organisations for undertaking the initiative to hold the meeting and touched upon the Law "On making amendments and supplements to the Civil Code of the Republic of Armenia", which entered into force in the beginning of the year and which restricted the maximum amount of fines and penalties for the first time ever.

The First Deputy Minister informed that a meeting had also been held with representatives of commercial banks upon adoption of the Law for the purpose of clarifying a number of provisions of the Law and applying a common practice, and after that meeting, nobody has expressed concerns about enforcement of the Law. Artur Hovhannisyan called on the attendees to hold an open discussion.

The representatives of the credit organisations asked questions that were mainly related to restriction of the maximum amount of penalty, calculation of the total amount of all penalties set under a contract, the legal regulations related to determination of the reference rate of penalty and certain practical problems with regard to those legal regulations, and the relevant positions on those issues were presented during the discussion.

According to the agreement reached after the meeting, the participants of the discussion will soon submit recommendations for clarifying the legal regulations for penalties, and relevant amendments will be made to those legal regulations on the basis of the recommendations.