Law on Bank Guarantees

Home / Program 2007 / Law on Bank Guarantees

Description

RBA wants to promote a specific law on bank guarantees.In the absence of this law, banks are issuing letters of guarantee based on the provisions of international rules or of regulations in their country of origin. Romanian courts are not familiar with the provisions of international rules. In the case of international letters of guarantee, any legal dispute is to be judged based on the legislation of the issuer's country.

This environment often results in unfavourable decisions to Romanian banks. An RBA group has put together the principal terms of a proposed guarantees law. The Objective is to prepare a bank guarantee law proposal that would meet the interest of the banking industry to improve the enforceability of banking contracts, supported by a legal comparison of similar laws in other EU countries and a RIA on the costs met by banks under the current practice and the possible benefits if a law is enacted.

Impact Drivers

  • Public: To improve enforceability of banking contracts; to expand the use of bank contingent liabilities to promote business activity
  • Private: To improve regulatory and enforcement environment

Economics

Total exposure to this risk could be up to EUR 1.2 billion, assuming that bank letters of guarantee represent 30% of all off-balance sheet commitments as of June 2006.

SPI Committee Involvement

To ensure that the proposal prepared by the RBA meets public policy objectives; To enable a prompt involvement by the SPI public stakeholders in the process of supporting the enactment of the law.Additional information SPI Committee.

Working Group

Constantin Barbu

Project Owner (PO), Director Romanian Banking Association

Ianfred Silberstein

Project Manager (PM), Director Legal Department National Bank of Romania

Tudor Taslaoanu

Deputy Project Manager (DPM), Director Alphabank Romania

Members

  

Margareta Puschiaza

Raiffeisen Bank

Simona Butoi

Counselor MFP

Madalina Cristea

Unicredit Bank

A. Zaharescu

Deputy Director, Banca Comerciala Romana

Raluca Cristofor

Legal Advisor, National Bank of Romania

Terms of Reference

Regulatory Impact Assessment

SPI Committee Documents

SPI Committee Enactment Correspondence

Technical Documents

Project Working Group Minutes

Project Correspondence

  • Memo- March 30, 2007