Supreme Court: bank not obliged to give notice of protest

[:it]According to a rather recent Supreme Court ruling, 12.2.2013 n. 3286, the bank is not obliged to warn the customer prior to the protest of a cheque issued for lack of funds.In the case under analysis, the Supreme Court rejected the ruling of the appeal instance, brought by a bank, wrongly ordered to pay damages to the account holder.

In this case, the Court of Appeal held that a legitimate interest, on the part of the account holder, cannot be detected in the legitimate expectation to be informed of the sending of a cheque for the raising of the protest. Specifically, they pointed out that such an expectation is not protected by our legal system, since its object is a mere factual interest, not at all comparable to a legitimate interest. The Court, on this point, contested the Court of Appeal's reference to the decision of the United Sections No. 500, of 22.7.1999.

It is recalled, briefly, that this last judgment stated that damage may be compensated pursuant to Article 2043 of the Civil Code.only if it concerns "an interest of relevance to the legal system; be it an interest undifferentiatedly protected in the form of a subjective right (absolute or relative) or in the form of a legitimate interest or other interest that is legally relevant and therefore not attributable to mere factual interest."In conclusion, the judgement points out that the damaging event resulting from a protest cannot be attributable to the conduct of the bank, but only to the account holder. The latter, in fact, is always aware of the state of his current account, and for this reason, any protest for lack of funds will be attributable solely to him, since he has no right to prior notice from the bank.

 

[:]

by admin