2020
Radu RIZOIU, Assoc. Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Bucharest, When the debtor is unable to pay: Urgency in the (banking) services agreements
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.31178/AUBD.2020.11
Abstract:
The recent medical crisis triggered by the SARS Cov-2 virus reopened the
public debate on the effects force majeure has upon the (performance by the
parties of the) contractual obligations. Aside of (re)discovering the legal
conditions required for an event to be qualified as force majeure, the legal
issues raised by the effects of such event were more urgent. The fact that the
Government passed special (albeit temporary) regulations seemingly altering the
general rules added to the complexity of the analysis.
In this paper we tried to capture those elements that are specific to the effects a force majeure event has on the performance of the banking services agreement. We focused on the various forms of banking credit operations as well as on some forms of deposit of funds. We noticed that the effect of the force majeure can be much flattened (until it can be mostly ignored) when the subject matter of the contract concerns (amounts of money) looked at as essentially fungible goods.
Key-words:
banking agreements, force majeure, COVID-19
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