Recently, decision no. 237/2024 of the Appellate Prosecutor of Athens was issued. This decision upheld an appeal filed by our client against an order by the Prosecutor of First Instance of Athens, which had archived a criminal complaint for usury against representatives of a financial leasing institution (leasing company) alleged to have been committed professionally (pursuant to Article 51, paragraph 2 of the Greek Code of Criminal Procedure).
Specifically, the order determined that the offense of "narrowly defined" usury, as described in Article 404, paragraph 1 of the Greek Penal Code, second-to-last sentence (“Whoever, in a transaction for providing any form of credit, renewal, or extension of a payment deadline ... agrees to or takes for themselves or for a third party financial benefits exceeding the legally permissible interest rate, shall be punished by imprisonment of at least six (6) months and a monetary fine”), does not require conditions of exploitation of the intellectual incapacity, need, or inexperience of the person receiving the credit, contrary to what was erroneously concluded in the order of the Prosecutor of First Instance. In other words, the commission of the offense, based on the Appellate Prosecutor’s order, requires only the agreement to or receipt of an interest rate higher than the legally permissible limit, without additional conditions.
Furthermore, a supplementary preliminary investigation was ordered, requiring the suspects to be summoned again to clarify whether the interest amount claimed by our client via a payment order, based on an alleged debt arising from a financial leasing agreement, constitutes a contractual interest rate or default interest rate exceeding the cap of 2.5% added to the contractual rate (a regulation applicable to all banking institutions, including financial leasing institutions, as stipulated in Article 4, paragraph 4 of Law 3601/2007 in conjunction with Bank of Greece Governor's Act 2393/1996, which states that “The default interest rate applied by credit institutions operating in Greece to debts from loans ... may not exceed the agreed contractual interest rate by more than two and a half percentage points (2.5%) annually”). If, in fact, the amount claimed in the contested payment order pertains to an unlawful charge of non-banking interest (exceeding the aforementioned cap), as stated in our client’s complaint, criminal prosecution for usury must be initiated.
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