BOLZANO. An illiquid and risky product had been sold and adequate diversification had not been offered. With these reasons, the Court of Appeal of Trentochaired by Isabella Martin with judge Tullio Joppi as rapporteur, has established that an investor, defended by the lawyer Christian Perathoner, will have to return 780 shares to Volksbank, Banca popolare dell’Alto Adige spa, which in turn will have to return to him the sum of 13,720 euros with interest and reimburse him for the costs of both levels of judgment, for a total of almost 11,600 euros.
The ruling declares the case resolved “due to serious breach of contract by Banca Popolare dell’Alto Adige spa” Share purchase agreement entered into on April 10, 2015. This is in fact the first ruling by the Court of Appeal on a case of this type, compared to a minority view in the Court of Bolzano that has shown a propensity towards the bank’s reasons.
Now Volksbank may find itself having to reevaluate the whole issue of compensation for the shares. It is in fact foreseeable that other pronouncements in favor of investors will follow, given the amount of Pending cases on the purchase and sale of shares.
The “investment services contract” had been stipulated in 2008, and on that occasion (as later, in 2010 and 2015) the bank had administered the Mifid questionnaire to the client, attributing to him a dynamic risk propensity after the first two surveys and a conservative risk propensity after the third. In 2015, two months after the questionnaire was administered, the client had signed a purchase order for 780 shares issued by the bank at a price of 19.55 euros each, for a total of 15,249 euros.
The case had started in the first instance in August 2021. On 11 August 2022 the Court of Bolzano had issued the ruling rejecting the claims, arguing that Banca Popolare dell’Alto Adige (Volksbank) had acted correctly. The investor and his lawyer had appealed the ruling. In the meantime, over the course of nine years, the liquidity had undergone a devaluation of more than 43 percent: the shares purchased at 19.55 euros could be resold last May at 8.50. Considering the grounds for the appeal to be well-founded, relating to the assessment of the investment’s congruence and the bank’s disclosure obligations as an intermediary, the Court of Appeal upheld the appeal. There are two reasons behind the ruling: the first is that the investor’s profile was conservative, i.e. without risk prospects. He would have wanted a safe investment, but the product being bought and sold was illiquid (i.e. not available) and risky. The second reason, on the other hand, refers to the principles of good information and clear adviceAccording to the Court of Appeal, the intermediary had offered inadequate diversification of the investment portfolio.
2024-09-05 07:43:31