Company: BCDRF
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0000891478-25-000054
Chunk: 747

Company: Banco Santander, S.A.
Filing Date: 2025-02-28
Form: 20-F
Chunk 747
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) stating that Directive 93/13 must be fixed on a case-by-case basis by national courts based on the moment when the consumer was aware of the unfair nature of the clause and the legal consequences of such unfair nature. Further, on 25 April 2024, two additional judgments were rendered (cases C-561/21 and C-484/21) in which the ECJ stated that the dies a quo of the statute of limitations for the annulment of the mortgage expenses shall be fixed on the moment when the consumer has an effective knowledge of the abusive nature of the clause and its effects and that this date must not be fixed (a) on the date of payment of such expense nor of the execution of the agreement; (b) when the Supreme Court has handed down judgments stating the abusive nature of a clause similar to the one included in the consumer contract; nor (c) when the ECJ has handed down judgments confirming that the statute of limitations for the annulment of contractual provisions is valid subject to its compliance with the principles of equivalence and effectiveness.

The Supreme Court has confirmed this criterion in its 14 June 2024 judgment, establishing that the public dissemination of case-law declaring the abusive nature of a clause does not necessarily give rise to the limitation period of the reimbursement action derived from similar clauses. However, the 4 July 2024 judgment, rendered in the case C-450/22, the ECJ has established that it cannot be excluded a priori that, as a consequence of the occurrence of an objective event or of a notorious event, such as the amendment of the applicable legislation or a widely disseminated and debated development of jurisprudence, the court considers that the average consumer's overall perception of the floor clause has changed during the reference period and has enabled him to become aware of the potentially significant economic consequences arising from such clause. A further preliminary question concerning the statute of limitations of the annulment of mortgage expenses has been raised before the ECJ by the First Instance Court No 8 of La Coruña. In December in 2024, the Supreme Court handed down two additional judgments regarding statute of limitations, in which it determines that the date to be considered for the purposes of the application of Directive 93/1994 and, consequently, the statute of limitations detailed in its previous judgments, is 31 December 1994 (i.e. the date when the deadline for its transposition ended). This is based on the principle of interpretation in accordance with directives not transposed (app