Sverdlovsk Region Arbitration Court considered the claim laid by VUZ-Bank (the asset of Life Group) against the regional division of Rospotrebnadzor (the state consumer rights watchdog).

The bank was trying to contest Rospotrebnadzor’s order to stop violating consumers’ rights issued on October 15, 2009. The agency issued this order for the bank after VUZ-Bank had been inspected by Rospotrebnadzor’s experts following a customer complaint. The subject of the inspection was whether the bank actually charged an extra fee for the administration of a loan offered to a customer.

‘The loan agreement signed by the bank and the loan recipient said that the average monthly charge would come to 1.6%, but in reality the borrowing party had to pay much more that this. The greater charge resulted from the commission taken for the administration of a bank account. Nevertheless, the text of the agreement has no information as to this kind of commission, so the loan recipient only found out that this commission existed at all after receiving the bank statement,’ Rospotrebnadzor reports.

This means the bank customers’ rights were violated in that the borrowers were not provided with full and reliable information about the product. The bank’s main offense, however, consisted in the fact that VUZ-Bank was not allowed to charge any commission at the issuance of a loan in the first place, Article 16 (part 2) of the Federal Consumer Rights Protection Act maintains.