Highest compensation amount awarded in entrepreneur vs. bank cases regarding currency options – Erbud S.A. vs. Bank Millennium S.A. case concluded!

On 28 July 2023, the Erbud S.A. vs. Bank Millennium S.A. case ended. We achieved a final judgment requiring Bank Millennium S.A. to reimburse our client (Erbud S.A.) PLN 112.3 million.

The dispute concerned the incorrect settlement of currency option transactions from 2008. The bank offered Erbud option structures (individual currency pairings) to hedge exchange rate risks in construction contracts denominated in EUR. Following rapid depreciation of the PLN/EUR currency pairing during the fourth quarter of 2008, the bank informed Erbud about the negative valuation and settlement of these instruments.

The company recovered from this extremely difficult financial situation, repaid its debts to the bank and then initiated litigation against the bank. Many companies which, at that time, took advantage of the currency options offered by banks went bankrupt or underwent restructuring.

We wrote about the Erbud S.A. vs. Bank Millennium S.A. case in November 2021 – see here [LINK]. At that time, our experts had achieved a positive judgment from the Court of Appeal in Warsaw. That judgment, from 24 November 2021, partially upheld Erbud’s appeal against an award requiring Bank Millennium to pay Erbud PLN 51,383,600 plus statutory interest from 8 December 2010 until 31 December 2015 and statutory default interest from 1 January 2016 until the payment date. Erbud was required to pay 29% of the litigation costs and Bank Millennium 71%.

The case was led by Wojciech Szczepaniak, Janusz Mazurek and Łukasz Cudny, assisted by Helena Czechowska and Katarzyna Różaniecka.