The Milan Court recently rejected urgent relief remedy lodged against one of the leading international banks and global financial service provider by a well known Italian financial intermediary, specialising in the issue of salary secured loans (SSLs).

The claimant requested the court that the bank be ordered to enter into a legally binding contract whereby the bank was allegedly under the obligation to purchase €440m of receivables. Urgent relief proceedings were issued by the claimant for the purpose of judicially enforcing that purported contract, on the basis that both parties had allegedly entered into a kind of binding agreement in late 2009.

The court however did not even rule on the merits of the claimant’s petition and declared such petition not admissible.

In accordance with the bank’s defensive arguments the court confirmed - on the basis of Italian court precedents - that is not permitted under Italian law to issue interim relief remedies whereby the court creates a legally binding agreement and consequently order any of the parties to comply with the relevant obligation thereunder. This being allowed only in very limited cases and, at the very least, only by way of final judgment and not by means of an interim relief remedy.

The Simmons & Simmons legal team acting for this major financial institution comprised of partner Francesco Maruffi and associate Chiara Vedovati: “This represents an outright victory for our client in that the bank fully succeeded in having the claimant’s €440m claim rejected at the first hearing.”