The opposition Socialists and Democratic Coalition (DK) together with civil groups have urged the supreme court, the Kúria, to re-examine the issue of forex loans held by Hungarian borrowers.
In 2014, the Hungarian parliament passed several laws designed to amend unfair terms of FX loan contracts on which repayments skyrocketed when the forint plummeted during the 2008 financial crisis. However, the exchange-rate risk remained a risk borne by the borrower. Hungarian laws have so far prohibited retroactive cancellation of contracts by the loan-holder due to unfair terns in the contract.
At a press conference, the deputy leader of the Socialists said the Kúria, the CJEU and Hungary’s central bank had made it clear that there was a problem with forex loan contracts. László Szakács said Hungarian courts been unprepared to handle the forex loan cases. “FX lawsuits would otherwise not be taking years to settle and it would not have taken six to seven months to interpret the European court’s ruling on the matter,” he said.
László Varju, the deputy leader of DK, told the same press conference that the government had failed to take steps to resolve the FX loan issue for many years and had therefore put hundreds of thousands of families at permanent risk. The two politicians called on the government to terminate foreclosures and call banks to account.