ON LEGALITY OF THE LOAN PROCESSING FEE IN THE

Banke su od izbijanja svetske ekonomske krize opterećene negativnom reputacijom u javnosti, i taj trend postoji i u Srbiji. Posledice ovakve reputacije su brojni sporovi protiv banaka, uključujući i sporove za proglašenje odredbe ugovora o kreditu o obavezi korisnika da banci naknadi troškove obrade kredita ništavom, uz obavezu vraćanja naplaćene naknade s kamatom. Uporednopravno, u Nemačkoj je od 2014. godine zastupljen stav Saveznog suda (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) da nije dozvoljeno ugovarati naknadu troškova obrade kredita putem opštih uslova poslovanja. Taj stav nemačkih sudova imao je odjeka i van Nemačke, ali su uprkos tome sudovi u nekim drugim zemljama, poput Austrije, stali na stanovište da je ovakvo ugovaranje dozvoljeno. U Srbiji je, posle tranzicije s početka dvehiljaditih, postojala jedinstvena sudska praksa o dozvoljenosti ove odredbe sve do marta 2017. godine, kada je Viši sud u Somboru doneo odluku da je ovo ugovaranje ništavo s pozivom na član 1065. Zakona o obligacionim odnosima (ZOO), posle čega je praksa sudova postala nejedinstvena. Razlozi navedeni u domaćoj sudskoj praksi nisu dovoljni da bi se mogao braniti stav da je ugovaranje obaveze naknade troškova obrade kredita ništavo. Dodatna analiza primenjivosti rezonovanja nemačkih sudova u okvirima srpskog prava takođe pokazuje da nema mesta zaključku o tome da je ovakvo ugovaranje ništavo, ni kad je saugovarač banke potrošač ni kad nije, ni kad je odredba deo opštih uslova poslovanja ni kad je individualno ugovorena. Najposle, autor navodi pravne i ekonomske posledice koje bi prouzrokovao drugačiji stav Vrhovnog kasacionog suda po ovom pitanju, te zaključuje da bi sem pozitivnih posledica za jednu i negativnih za drugu stranu u sporu, posledice po opšti interes bile vrlo negativne i ozbiljne, kako s pravnog tako i s ekonomskog stanovišta.


Introduction
In the last ten years, specifically after the outbreak of the global economic crisis at the end of the past decade, the financial services industry has been under intensive scrutiny and subjected to versatile adverse influences towards the banks and other financial institutions (hereafter, for the sake of being concise, the term "banks" will be used to denote all lending institutions). It is not unreasonable to assume that this situation is in fact the consequence of the mentioned crisis, which originated in the financial sector and for which the general (lay) public holds the banks responsible. The front line of the mentioned adverse effects towards the banks are usually the media and the social networks, targeting the reputation of banks by denoting them as the "necessary evil" or simply the "evil". Once the public opinion is strongly biased against the banks, the effects are being "particularized" by addressing requests towards the various authorities for the refunds of paid amounts from the banks, or for the reduction of existing obligations of the banks' clients. Truth be told, some banks contributed to this situation by attempting to increase their revenues by abusing their advantageous position in order to force upon their clients some provisions of the loan agreement which, in their entirety or partially, were not allowed under the applicable law or were manifestly unfair for the client (hidden burdens for the clients in the general terms and conditions, the so-called smallprint, unilateral change of the interest rate based upon the commercial policies of the bank, limitation of the variable part of the interest rate to zero in order to avoid the effects of its negative value, differences in exchange rates according to which the loan was paid out and according to which it is to be returned, etc.). In public discourse, the current trend of the negative impact towards the banks is most often justified by past actions of those less conscientious among the banks, because, as a reaction, the "pendulum shifted" towards the additional protection of the clients at the expense of the banks.
The most significant lines of action against the banks come from the area of consumer protection regulations, whose very purpose is the protection of consumers as economically weaker, less educated and less informed party in the loan agreement, in order to achieve an acceptable level of equality of the contractual parties. At the EU level, after the outbreak of the world economic crisis, new regulations concerning the protection of users of financial services have been passed, the primary aim of which was to battle against the unfair business practices towards the users of financial services The Mortgage Credit Directive has not been fully transposed into the Serbian law yet, even though its transposition served as one of the reasons for adopting the Law on Real Estate Valuers (Official Gazette of RS No. 108/2016 and 113/2017). It has happened, however, that the authorities in charge of application of consumer protection laws declare unfair and, thus, null and void the provisions of the loan agreements that have, in some countries, been common in lending operations of banks for decades, which is, for example, the case in Poland. The bankers usually complain that such actions place them in an disadvantageous and unfair position, because they do not have the possibility to address that same authorities with a request to obtain a merited decision that a certain contractual provision is not unfair and that it is valid, so that, in fact, there is no way for a bank that strives to conduct its business in good faith to be sure that the clauses it applies in its course of business shall not, in three, five or ten years, retroactively be declared unfair and null and void. Of course, the general public, which is prepared by the biased media coverage Živković M. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law docnijim propisima kao izričito nepoštena predviđena ponašanja nekih banaka, u pogledu ugovaranja jednostrano promenljive kamatne stope (Hiber i Živković, 2015), različitih kurseva po kojima se kredit pušta u tečaj i vraća, dok se još uvek vodi pravna borba u vezi s tretmanom kredita s valutnom klauzulom u švajcarskim francima (CHF krediti). Organ koji je u prvom redu nadležan za rešavanje po prigovorima korisnika kredita je Narodna banka Srbije (NBS), kao regulator i organ nadzora nad radom bankarskog sektora, ali to naravno ne sprečava vođenje sudskih postupaka ako su korisnici kredita nezadovoljni odgovorom poslovne banke i NBS na njihovu primedbu. Situacija je u ovom pogledu normativno unapređena donošenjem Zakona o zaštiti korisnika finansijskih usluga 2011. godine (stupio na snagu 5. decembra 2011), jer je cela ta oblast preciznije uređena i usklađena s evropskim standardima. Iako su postojali stavovi da su ovim zakonom zapravo samo kodifikovani već postojeći dobri običaji u poslovanju domaćih poslovnih banaka, nema sumnje da je donošenje ovog zakona i precizno unošenje evropskih standarda u ovoj oblasti u pravo Srbije značajno povećalo pravnu sigurnost i olakšalo prosuđivanje o tome šta jeste a šta nije dozvoljeno ugovaranje u ovoj oblasti. Ipak, ovim zakonom nije predviđeno njegovo retroaktivno dejstvo (Hiber i Živković, 2015, 579), pa su ostala otvorena neka od pitanja dozvoljenosti pojedinih klauzula za period pre njegovog stupanja na snagu, koja u međuvremenu dobijaju sudski epilog. Takođe, postoje neka pitanja koja se otvaraju u sudskoj praksi, a koja nisu predmet izričitog regulisanja ovim zakonom. Naplata troškova obrade kredita jedno je od takvih pitanja, uz još neka koja se pojavljuju u sudskoj praksi, poput prevaljivanja troškova osiguranja stambenih kredita kod Nacionalne korporacije za osiguranje stambenih kredita (NKOSK) na korisnike kredita.
Još u maju 2014. godine BGH je stao na stanovište da je naplata troškova obrade kredita čija je naknada predviđena opštim uslovima poslovanja nedozvoljena u ugovorima o kreditu s potrošačima, odnosno da je pogođena sankcijom ništavosti (Odluke BGH od 13.5.2014, Az. XI ZR 170/13 i Az. XI ZR 405/12). Sud je, naime, našao da je odredba o naplati troškova kredita (u jednom od dva slučaja u iznosu od 3%, u drugom 1%) bila, prema § 305 Nemačkog građanskog zakonika (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, dalje: BGB), opšti uslov poslovanja, koji nije, shodno § 307 BGB, izuzet od sadržinske kontrole, usled čega je podvrgnuta sudskoj kontroli sadržine, te da je ta odredba po stavu suda ništava jer protivno savesnosti i poštenju preterano otežava položaj potrošača-korisnika kredita (Vid. BGH XI ZR 170/13, Rn. 27 i dalje; sud je priznao da o tom pitanju postoje različita mišljenja u literaturi i sudskoj praksi, utvrdio da je preovlađujući stav u prilog ništavosti i prihvatio taj stav, uprkos ranijoj praksi BGH koja je, još od 1979 pa sve do 2004, prihvatala uobičajen trošak obrade kredita od 2% kao dozvoljen, bez naročito detaljnog obrazloženja). Ne ulazeći detaljno u Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije to be prejudiced against the banks, has no understanding for the problems of the bankers, but one can expect that, as it was before, the interests of legal certainty and economic realities shall start turning the "pendulum" back to the balanced position in the foreseeable future. The trend of subsequent reconsideration of agreements with the banks has also, though with some delay, reached Serbia. Apart from the negative impact towards the banks in public, some of the disputed issues, which have been explicitly declared as unfair by subsequently adopted regulations, have been solved by decisions of the courts. This applies to contracting unilaterally variable interest rates (Hiber and Živković, 2015), different exchange rates according to which the loan is paid out and returned, while the legal battle regarding the treatment of the loans indexed in Swiss francs (CHF loans) is still ongoing. The authority having the primary competence to decide on the objections and complaints of the loan users is the National Bank of Serbia (hereinafter: NBS), as the regulator and supervisor of the banking sector, but this, naturally, does not preclude carrying out the court procedure if the loan user is dissatisfied with the reply of the commercial bank and/ or the NBS to its complaint. The normative situation in this respect has been improved by adopting the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers of 2011 (came into force on 5 December 2011), because the whole area has been regulated much more precisely since, being better harmonized with the European standards. Even though there have been opinions that this particular Law has merely codified the existing customs in operations of commercial banks, there is no doubt that the adoption of this Law along with the precise transposition of the European standards in this area into the Serbian law have significantly increased legal certainty and made decision-making on what is allowed and what is not allowed in loan agreements much easier. However, this law does not have a retroactive effect (Hiber and Živković, 2015, 579), so some of the issues regarding the validity of certain contractual clauses in the period before it came into force remained open, in the meantime getting solved at the courts of law. Also, there are some issues opened in case law of the courts, which are not subject to explicit regulation by this Law. One of such issues is the validity of charging the loan processing fee, along with some other issues, such as shifting the expense of mortgage loan insurance of the National Mortgage Insurance Corporation (NKOSK) to loan users.
The following sections of this paper present the situation in Germany, which certainly influences the dispute related to the loan processing fee in Serbia, and then shortly the situation in some other European countries. Thereafter, the paper deals with the existing (incoherent) case law of Serbian courts related to this issue in the previous ten years, along with the arguments put forward in different court decisions. Subsequently, the paper provides an analysis of the arguments contained in Serbian case law, followed by the additional analysis of this issue, and finally, after featuring the author's own position as the result of the performed analysis, the conclusion offers the analysis of the consequences of the (potential) taking of the opposite position on this issue in court decisions.

Comparative Law -The German Experience and the European Standard
As already mentioned, several decisions made by the German courts, including the Federal Court (Bundesgerichtshof, BGH) as the supreme instance, by which, starting form the first half of the current decade, contractual clause on loan processing fee, under certain conditions, has been declared null and void, are of a relatively high interest for the topic of this paper. Bearing in mind the contemporary means of communication, it is not unusual that these decisions have directly influenced posing the same question to the courts in Serbia, given the relatively good communication between the organizations for protection of financial services users in Europe.
Back in May 2014, the BGH took the position that charging the loan processing fee based upon a clause contained in the general terms and conditions is not allowed in loan agreements with consumers, i.e. that such clause is null and void (BGH Decisions dated 13 , because it defines the (objectively) essential terms of the loan agreement. However, it is important to emphasize that in these decisions the BGH did not claim that a bank can charge only interest, but that, in the context of discussing the issue that the clause on loan processing fee does not fall under the exemption of content control of general terms and conditions provided in § 307 BGB, it found that this fee is in fact an addition to the interest as the "price of the loan", and not a charge for a separate identified service, and that therefore the exemption does not apply being subject to content control as a part of general terms and conditions. According to the German law, namely, if one would consider the loan processing fee as a part of the interest, as the main consideration paid by the loan user, it could not be subjected to content control of general terms and conditions; the same would apply if the loan processing fee would have been treated as a separate consideration for some other, special service (and not for the basic obligation of the lender to make available and disburse the loan). But, if one would consider the loan processing fee as an addition to the interest, than the content control is allowed, and the second instance court (in the case of BGH XI ZR 170/13, LG Bonn) and the BGH found that this is exactly the case. BGH also confirmed that the multi-component prices are allowed in principle, meaning that the price of the loan may consist of more different constitutive parts, but in respect of the loan it took the position that loan processing fees, given the fact that they are not paid in installments but rather as a single, one-off payment, are subjected to content control (while the so-called disagio, which is paid in installments, is not subject to content control because it is a part of the interest, the payment of which is the main obligation based on the loan agreement). According to the German law on general terms and conditions of contracts (more precisely, its case law), it is not allowed to shift the obligation of one party to the other by means of general terms and conditions (BGH XI ZR 170/13, Rn. 73 et seq.). The logic of this rule starts from the position that the nonmandatory provisions of the law determine the just distribution of mutual obligations of the parties in nominated contracts, followed by the position that unilateral change of such distribution from one party to the other, in the sense of shifting costs or obligations of one party to the other, by means of general terms and conditions, is not allowed because it is considered as an excessive burden to the party accepting the general terms and conditions, contrary to the principle of good faith and fair dealing. BGH found that all that the party having filed the complaint (revision) quoted as costs that should "cover" the loan processing fee (checking the creditworthiness, activities regarding the execution of the agreement, obligations on disclosing the copies of contract, etc.) are in fact costs made in the interest of the lender, and not any special separate services rendered to the loan user, and that, therefore, first, the court is allowed to control the content of this provision of general terms and conditions and second, shifting of these costs to the loan user by means of general terms and conditions is forbidden under the German law. In July 2017 the BGH passed two further decisions, by which it determined that contracting and charging the loan processing fee in general terms and conditions is invalid under the German law even if the loan user is not a consumer (BHG decisions dated 4.7.2017, XI ZR 233/16, annulling the second instance decision of the OLG Hamburg and returning the case for retrial and XI ZR 562/15, confirming the second instance decision of the OLG Celle). The reasoning was basically the same as in the decisions related to the consumers, the difference being the consideration of some additional arguments by the court, such as the tax benefits for loan users due to the single payment of the loan processing fee, yet not changing its position based on these additional arguments. The respondents claimed that this provision is usual and common in commercial loan agreements, but the court concluded that this claim is not proven, while invoking the business practices did not help either. Even though the BGH confirmed that in "nonconsumer" loan agreements the loan user, in principle, enjoys less protection, it took the position that the reasoning according to which unilateral shifting of obligations by means of general terms and conditions is not valid applies also in the cases where the loan user is fully informed and of equal bargaining power.
At the end one should notice that even the German BGH is not completely consistent in its position, because in the case of the state controlled bank, Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), it took the position that the single, oneoff fee (Auszalungsabschlag) amounting to 4% (2% for the loan processing fee and 2% for the risk premium) payable upon disbursement of the loan is valid even if it is stipulated in the general terms and conditions, in all contracts concluded before 11 June 2011 (which is when the reform of BGB provisions pertaining to the loan agreement came into force), and for contracts concluded after that date in all contracts with "non-consumers", whereas for the loan agreements with consumers, BGH has not yet made its position public, but in all probability KfW will not have to return the money it received (BGH decisions dated 16 February 2016 XI ZR 454/14, XI ZR 63/15, XI ZR 73/15 and XI ZR 96/15). The court justified the different treatment of the loan processing fee in these cases by the fact that KfW does not grant loans under market prices, hence there is room for it to charge the loan processing fee, when the interest rate is below the market.
To the best of our knowledge, this case law of BGH is not followed in other European countries, mainly because it is considered a national peculiarity related to the development of the law on general terms and conditions in Germany. Thus, the Austrian Supreme Court, Oberste Gerichsthof (OGH), even though aware of the 2014 BGH decisions on loans with consumers, explicitly found that the clause on loan processing fee is not null under the Austrian law, even in the cases where it is a part of the general terms and conditions (OGH decision 6Ob13/16d dated 30.3.2016). This decision was passed in the proceedings following an action for an injunction filed by an organization for consumer protection against a commercial bank, requesting the bank to omit the clause on payment of loan processing fee in loan agreements because it is illegal and invalid (the purpose of this type of lawsuit is exactly to obtain a court decision on legality of loan processing fee in the Austrian law). The plaintiff succeeded at the courts of lower instance, but their decision was reversed by the OGH after revision. Besides, it also testifies to the effects of the German experience outside Germany, because it is perfectly clear that filing the lawsuit in this Austrian case was inspired by the decision of the German BGH from 2014 (which is obvious from point 3.2 of the reasoning of the mentioned OGH decision). The courts in Czech Republic also took the position that contracting loan processing fee is allowed and valid (Supreme Court of Czech Republic decision CPJN 203/2013 and decision III. ÚS 3725/13 of the Constitutional Court of the Czech Republic). Even though there is no relatable published decision of the Swiss Federal Court (Bundesgericht, Tribunal fédéral), there is no doubt that charging loan processing fee in Switzerland is also not considered invalid. In fact, it seems that the German law, in this particular case, is more of an exception, and one could say that the general comparative (minimal) standard in Europe is the one on the validity of contractual clause on charging the Od većeg značaja za sadašnju sudsku praksu bile su odluke donete posle izbijanja svetske ekonomske krize krajem 2008 godine, koje su donošene po tužbama korisnika kredita protiv banaka. Najveći uticaj imala je objavljena odluka Privrednog apelacionog suda Pž. 2603/2013 od 25. septembra 2013. godine, objavljena u Sudska praksa privrednih sudova -Bilten br. 4/2013 i u bazi Paragraf lex. Prema objavljenoj sentenci, ugovaranje prava na naplatu ugovorene kamate ne isključuje pravo banke da na korisnika kredita prenese i deo troškova oko odobravanja i praćenja korišćenja kredita. Prema obrazloženju te odluke, "činjenica da u specijalnim odredbama koje regulišu ugovor o kreditu Zakona o obligacionim odnosima, te u Zakonu o bankama, nije izričito zakonom predviđeno pravo banke da prilikom plasmana novčanih sredstava kroz ugovor o kreditu, od korisnika kredita naplaćuje i naknade za troškove svog poslovanja, ne znači da je ugovaranje ovakvih vrsta naknada zabranjeno". Sud je stao na stanovište da načelo autonomije volje iz čl. 10 ZOO omogućava banci da prevali deo svojih troškova poslovanja, koji obuhvataju rad oko obrade kreditnog zahteva i drugih aktivnosti tokom praćenja i otplate kredita, na korisnika kredita. Jednokratna naknada troška obrade u iznosu od 2% odobrene glavnice i provizija od 3% od preostalog iznosa za slučaj prevremenog vraćanja kredita otuda po stavu ovog suda nije zabranjena. U obrazloženju se navodi i sledeće: "Drugostepeni sud ne prihvata tezu žalioca da banka prilikom zaključenja ugovora o kreditu sa korisnikom isključivo ima prava da ugovara ugovornu kamatu kao cenu plasiranih novčanih sredstava. Ovo stoga, što ugovorna kamata upravo i predstavlja prihod od plasmana, ali njeno ugovaranje ne obuhvata i obračunate troškove poslovanja, te se isti mogu i samostalno ugovoriti". Ovaj stav dosledno je sproveden u kasnijim odlukama Privrednog apelacionog suda, 6 Pž. 4339/14 od 11. septembra 2015. godine (sud izričito konstatovao da odredba o naknadi troškova kredita nije ništava u smislu čl. 103 ZOO) i najposle 5 Pž. 637/17 od 2. februara 2017. godine (sud je našao da se ne radi o naknadi troškova već o naplati provizije kao ugovorene odredbe koja nije zabranjena). Valja napomenuti da se radi o odlukama specijalizovanih, privrednih sudova, tako da je izvesno da u ovim slučajevima korisnici kredita nisu potrošači.

Case Law on Legality of Contracting Loan Processing Fee in Serbia
The oldest published domestic decision mentioning the loan processing fee is the Decision of the Supreme Court of Serbia Prev. 295/99 dated 19 January 2000, published in periodical Privrednik No. 131 and in the Paragraf lex database. According to the published dictum of this decision, a bank has no right to the loan processing fee, charged as a percentage of the amount of loan together with the interest. In this case the bank has annexed the loan agreement so that the monthly interest was increased from 15% per month to 18.5% per month, whereby this increase by 3.5% was presented as a loan processing fee payable monthly. The Supreme Court of Serbia annulled the provision on the 3.5% monthly increase based on the loan processing fee, explaining that according to Art. 1065 ZOO a bank has the right to have the principal amount returned with interest, and not the right to the compensation of costs in the percentage amount of the loan, finding that according to the same Article 1065 ZOO a bank only has the right to the expenses that actually occurred due to the loan relation. The reach of this decision is nowadays relatively small, because the legal framework for the operation of banks is completely changed, as well as the overall business climate in which the banks operate. What makes this decision still relevant is the fact that the Supreme Court decided to determine the invalidity invoking Article 1065 ZOO, and not some other articles thereof, i.e. some other legal institutions (usury, simulation etc.). As we shall see, this is the article being invoked in the context of (in)validity of the loan processing fees until today.
More recently, after the thorough reconstruction of the banking sector and closing of the so-called "old banks" which went bankrupt, followed by the entry of foreign owned banks into domestic market, the situation has changed significantly, because sanctions have been lifted, foreign exchange rate of dinar was made relatively stable and the level of interest rates dropped drastically. Thus, already on 10 March 2006, the Higher Commercial Court passed the Decision Pž. 10482/2005, published in Sudska praksa trgovinskih sudova -Bilten No. 2/2006, in which it took the position that charging the loan processing fee is not contrary to mandatory provisions of the law and that it is thus allowed. The lawsuit was, in this case, filed by one of the state banks in bankruptcy, against the loan user who failed to perform his obligations from the loan agreement. The respondent defended himself by claiming that some contractual provisions are invalid due to usury. Apart from invoking the relevant provisions of the Law on Banks and Other Financial Organizations that was in force at the time the contract was executed, the Higher Commercial Court also invoked Articles 1065 (regarding the issue of claim for the return of revalued principal and interest) and 1066 ZOO (regarding the legality of other contracted claims).
Relatively more important for the current case law were the decisions passed after the outbreak of the world economic crisis in late 2008, which were passed as a consequence of the lawsuits submitted by loan users against the banks. The most influential was the published Decision of the Commercial Court of Appeals Pž. 2603/2013 dated 25 September 2013, published in Sudska praksa privrednih sudova -Bilten No. 4/2013 and in Paragraf lex database. According to the published dictum, contracting the right to charge interest does not exclude the right of a bank to shift a part of its expenses related to granting and supervising the loan to the loan user. According to the reasoning of this decision, "the fact that special provisions of the Law of Contracts and Torts pertaining to the loan contract, as well as the relevant provisions of the Law on Banks, do not explicitly grant the right of a bank to, at the time it disburses the lent money as foreseen in the loan agreement, charge some of its expenses to the loan user, does not mean Za dalje postupanje sudova u ovoj oblasti nije bio bez značaja ni dopis Narodne banke Srbije od 5. jula 2017. godine, koji je, kako je u njemu napisano, došao kao reakcija na veliki broj obraćanja Narodnoj banci sa zahtevom da se od poslovnih banaka traži "nadoknada štete po osnovu naplaćene naknade za obradu kredita". Pozivajući se na član 19 stav 1 tačka 12 Zakona o zaštiti korisnika finansijskih usluga, kojim je predviđeno da je vrsta i visina svih naknada koji padaju na teret korisnika kredita obavezan element ugovora o kreditu, NBS u dopisu preporučuje da, iako je banka načelno slobodna da, u granicama javnog poretka, određuje vrstu i visinu naknada i troškova, ove troškove treba opredeliti u fiksnom nominalnom iznosu, a ne u procentu od odobrene glavnice, jer u potonjem slučaju se različito plaća za istu uslugu. U dopisu se takođe ističe da bi "cenu kredita pre svega treba da određuje kamatna stopa", te da naknada troškova kredita treba da bude "odraz stvarnih troškova koje banka ima pri uspostavljanju i u toku trajanja ugovornog odnosa", kako bi sve bilo u skladu s članom 1066 ZOO.
Iako se u javnosti pojavila znatno kasnije (u prvoj polovini marta 2018. godine, videti http://rs.n1info.com/a371176/Biznis/Efektiva-Potvrda-da-banke-ne-mogu-da-naplateobradu-kredita.html), pri razmatranju ovog pitanja treba pomenuti i odluku Vrhovnog kasacionog suda Rev. 1655/2017 od 1. novembra 2017. godine, kojom je prihvaćena revizija i ukinute presude nižih sudova kojima je, između ostalog, pravosnažno odbijen zahtev za utvrđivanje ništavosti i povraćaj novca plaćenog na osnovu naknade troškova obrade kredita. U pogledu razloga za ukidanje, Vrhovni kasacioni sud se nije decidno izjasnio, pomenuvši samo da "za sada" ne može da prihvati zaključak nižih sudova da se radi o delu cene ugovora, pošto je cena kredita, shodno članu 1065. ZOO, kamata, pa se ne vidi po kom su osnovu niži sudovi zaključili da je naknada na ime obrade kredita deo cene. Iako se u javnosti navodilo da se ovom odlukom Vrhovni kasacioni sud definitivno i decidno izjasnio o pitanju (ne) Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije that contracting these types of fees is forbidden". The Court took the position that the principle of freedom of contract, provided in Article 10 of the ZOO, enables the bank to shift a part of its operational expenses, including the work related to loan processing and other activities related to loan supervision and loan repayment, to the loan user. A one-off, single payment of the loan processing fee amounting to 2% of the loan principal and a fee of 3% of the remaining amount for the case of premature repayment of the loan are thus, by the finding of this Court, not forbidden. The reasoning also contains the following: "The second instance court does not accept the position of the appealing party that a bank, while executing a loan agreement with a user, exclusively has the right to contractual interest as a price for the granted loan. This because the contractual interest represents the income related to the loan, but contracting it does not include the existing operational expenses, hence the compensation of these can be contracted separately". This position was consequently implemented in the subsequent decisions of the Commercial Court of Appeals, 6 Pž. 4339/14 dated 11 September 2015 (the Court has explicitly stated that the provision on the loan processing fee is not invalid on the grounds of Article 103 ZOO) and lately 5 Pž. 637/17 dated 2 February 2017 (the Court found that the disputed provision was not concerning the loan processing fee but rather the charging of a commission fee, which is not forbidden). It should be noted that these are the decisions of specialized, commercial courts, so that it is certain that in these cases loan users were not consumers. A partial reversal of the case law occurred based on the two decisions of the Higher Court in Sombor dated 15 March 2017, which the same tribunal of three judges passed on the same day in two different cases (the reference number of the first decision is 320/17, the number of the second one is omitted from the electronically published version). In both of these decisions, the reasoning of which is practically the same, the Court confirmed the first instance decisions and found that the clause on the loan processing fee is null and void (invalid). The first instance court in both cases stated that the contract explicitly stipulates that the loan user separately pays the compensation for the socalled "external services", such as the fee for the loan report, real property valuation costs, costs for purchasing the promissory note forms, real property insurance costs, mortgage deed notarization costs and mortgage registration costs, so that the loan processing fee does not include those costs, but is rather charged to cover the so-called "internal services". The first instance court has, by invoking the "positions of the financial profession", concluded that all internal costs of a bank must be included in the interest, which, as the price of the loan, must contain both the cost and the margin, and also that the bank does not engage additional labor in the process of approving the loan, and is therefore compelled to include these costs in the interest and cannot charge them separately. The Higher Court in Sombor confirmed this position invoking Articles 12 (principle of good faith), 15 (principle of equivalence), 46 and 47 (on the subject matter of an obligation), 105 (partial invalidity), 109 (invalidity is determined ex officio) and lastly 1065 ZOO (essential terms of a loan agreement). Fundamentally, the Court took the position that banks can charge separately only the "external services", and that the interest is the only allowed price for "internal costs" of the bank, i.e. that such costs must be included in the interest, based upon Article 1065 ZOO. Though, probably as a reflection of the Supreme Court decision from 2000, the reasoning also states that the bank has the right to collect "only the actual costs deriving from the loan relation", which is in obvious contradiction to the position that all internal costs must be included in the interest. The Court specifically took into consideration the fact that the bank did not prove the existence of internal costs, which the provision on loan processing fee, contained in the tariff of the bank, was meant to cover, and that the expertise proposed by the plaintiff demonstrated that there are no such costs apart from the regular operating expenses of the bank. Moreover, the expertise demonstrated that "there is no economic justification for the existence of such costs", even though the bank did not cooperate with the expert and provided any of its internal documents related to its operational costs. The Court did mention the fact that the disputed clause is contained in general terms and conditions, respectively that the loan user merely signs the text of the contract prepared in advance and already printed out, but only in the context of the fact that the loan user is not privy to the mechanism for determination of the amount of the loan processing fee, which altogether, in the opinion of the Court, puts the loan user in an unequal position, and represents a breach of the principle of equivalence pertaining to bilateral contracts. Soon thereafter, on 18 May 2017, The Third Primary Court in Belgrade passed its decision 18 P br. 3656/15, in which it also found that the clause on the loan processing fee is invalid. Related to the invalidity of the clause on loan processing fee, this decision contains, partially even verbatim, the same reasoning as the mentioned decisions of the Higher Court in Sombor. Essentially, the Court took the position that all internal services must be included in the interest, deriving that position from Article 1065 ZOO. As we shall see, the Court of Appeals in Belgrade confirmed this decision in the second instance proceedings.
The subsequent actions of the courts were probably also influenced by the letter of the National Bank of Serbia dated 5 July 2017, which was, as stated therein, a reaction to the numerous complaints addressed at the National Bank requesting the commercial banks "to compensate the damages incurred based upon collected loan processing fees". Invoking Article 19 paragraph 1 Item 12 of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers, which prescribes that the type and amount of all fees payable by the loan user are an essential term of the loan agreement, in its letter the NBS, even though it stated that in principle the bank is free to, within the boundaries of public order, determine the type and amount of fees and expenses, recommended that such fees and expenses should be determined in a fixed nominal amount and not as a percentage of the principal amount of the loan, because in the latter case the same service is paid for differently by different loan users. The letter also pointed out that "the price of the loan should primarily be determined by the interest rate", and that the loan processing fee should be "a reflection of the actual costs incurred by the bank while establishing the contractual relation and during it", in order for everything to be in accordance with Article 1066 ZOO.
Even though it publicly emerged at a significantly later date (in the first half of March 2018, see http://rs.n1info.com/a371176/Biznis/ Efektiva-Potvrda-da-banke-ne-mogu-danaplate-obradu-kredita.html), in considering this issue we must take into consideration the decision of the Supreme Court of Cessation Rev. 1655/2017 dated 1 November 2017, by which a revision was adopted, thereby annulling the decisions of the lower instance courts, which, amongst other issues, denied the request to declare the clause on loan processing fee invalid and to refund the amount paid on the basis of the loan processing fees. As for the reasons for annulling these decisions, the Supreme Court of Cessation did not make itself completely clear, mentioning only that "for the time being" it could not accept the conclusion of the lower instance courts that the loan processing fee is a part of the loan price, because the price of loan, according to Article 1065 ZOO, is the interest, so it cannot see the basis upon which the lower courts concluded that such fee is the part of the price. Even though there were claims that the Supreme Court of Cessation has, by this decision, definitively and clearly taken its position on the issue of validity of the clause on the loan processing fee, such conclusion obviously does not stem from the text of that decision.
Chronologically, the next decision is the one by the Higher Court in Jagodina Gž No. 2106/17 dated 5 December 2017, which confirmed the decision of the Third Primary Court in Belgrade stating that the clause on loan processing fee is valid under the law. The plaintiff in this case claimed that the clause on the loan processing fee (amounting to 1.5% of the loan principal) is invalid because it is in breach of the good commercial customs, because the costs are determined as a lump-sum and lastly because it is contrary to the provision of Article 103 ZOO. The first instance court established that the fee is determined in a clear manner, that the plaintiff was aware of it at the time of the execution of the contract, hence that there is no breach of Article 103 of ZOO. Confirming the first instance decision, the Higher Court in Jagodina took over, almost verbatim, the reasoning contained in the published decision of the Commercial Court of Appeals from 2013. Nevertheless, this decision contains some reservation in respect of the

Analiza predstavljene sudske prakse srpskih sudova
Kad je reč sudskoj praksi domaćih sudova opisanoj u prvom delu, ono što najpre "bode oči" nekome ko se akademski bavi pravom jeste činjenica da su gotovo sve odluke donete bez ikakvog uzimanja u obzir odredaba Zakona o zaštiti korisnika finansijskih usluga ili opšteg Zakona o zaštiti potrošača, bez obzira na to da li je zauzet stav da je odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita punovažna ili ništava. To jeste donekle razumljivo kod odluka privrednih sudova, jer oni po prirodi stvari ne primenjuju tzv. "potrošačko pravo" jer sude privredne sporove, mada u pogledu konkretnog pitanja razmatranje odredaba Zakona o zaštiti korisnika finansijskih usluga nije bez smisla, iako se taj zakon na konkretan pravni odnos ne primenjuje (uostalom, primer za to je hronološki poslednja odluka Privrednog suda u Nišu, koji nije mogao da izbegne ovo pitanje jer se na taj zakon pozvala tužena banka, odnosno njen advokat). Kod odluka sudova opšte nadležnosti, to najblaže rečeno čudi. Izuzetak predstavlja jedino hronološki poslednja odluka, koja je, u obrazloženju, u obzir uzela kako odredbe Chronologically the newest is the first instance decision of the Commercial Court in Niš 3 P 784/17 dated 1 February 2018. While presenting this decision one should bear in mind the fact that it has been passed in a period in which, as opposed to the previous one, the issue of legality of loan processing fee has become highly exposed in the media, as a result of the public statements of "Efektiva" on the one hand, and of the Association of Serbian Banks and the NBS, on the other hand. It seems that due to this exposure the representatives of both parties (especially the defendant bank), and more importantly the court itself, approached this issue much more seriously and, thus, offered the increasingly comprehensive argumentation than in the previous proceedings in which this issue was deliberated. The lawsuit in this case was filed on 22.11.2017, when this issue was already in the center of public attention, and newspaper articles on illegality of the clause on the loan processing fee were also submitted as evidence. The amount of the loan processing fee in this particular loan agreement, which was, as evidenced by the competence of the commercial court, not concluded with a consumer but rather between a bank and a company, was set at 0,4%. The plaintiff claimed that the clause is invalid The defendant also invoked the position of the NBS, as the financial sector regulator, that the loan processing fee is allowed, as well as Article 19 of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers which provides that all other costs of the loan, other than interest, must also be included in the agreement and taken into consideration when calculating the annual percentage rate of charge, which testifies to the fact that the clause on the loan processing fee is allowed in loan agreements with consumers, and therefore even more so in non-consumer loan agreements. Essentially, the defendant pointed out that the bank is allowed to shift its costs to the loan user in a way which does not violate the principle of equivalence. The court in this case determined the existence of the incoherent case law related to this issue (this is why the judge has, on 5 March 2018, filed a Request for Solving a Disputed Legal Issue to the Supreme Court of Cessation), and subsequently took the position that the claim by the plaintiff that the clause is invalid based upon Article 103 in relation to 1065 ZOO is "manifestly wrong" because it rests on a false premise that everything that is not explicitly allowed is forbidden. The court further found that the Law on Banks (Official Gazette of the RS Nos. 107/2005, 91/2010 and 14/2015) in its Article 43 explicitly mentions the possibility of a single manner of calculation and publication of costs, interests and fees for banking services, which means that the compensation of operating costs of a bank is allowed and represents a standard practice in the area of banking services related to loan agreements. The Court derived the same conclusion from the provisions of Article 19 of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers. Lastly, the court determined that this contractual clause is in accordance with the EU law, starting from Directive 2008/48/EC, even if the client of the bank is a consumer (and even more so if he is not), and that such clauses are a Živković M. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law korišćenja i vraćanja kredita", iz čega jasno proizlazi mogućnost ugovarača da predvide različite uslove davanja kredita, što uključuje i mogućnost da se dogovori obaveza korisnika kredita da davaocu kredita naknadi troškove obrade kredita. Iz člana 1065 ZOO nikako ne proizlazi da je "banka ima pravo samo na stvarne troškove koji su nastali iz kreditnog odnosa", kako je navedeno u odluci Vrhovnog suda Srbije iz 2000. godine i ponovljeno u odlukama Višeg suda u Somboru. Ovo pre svega jer odredba člana 1065 ZOO o troškovima bilo koje strane u kreditnom odnosu uopšte ne govori, a posebno ne govori o "stvarnim troškovima". Doduše, ugovorne bi strane mogle ugovoriti da primalac kredita davaocu naknadi "stvarne troškove" kredita, u kom slučaju bi primalac kredita davaocu dugovao one troškove koje ovaj može dokumentovati, odnosno dokazati. Međutim, ako ugovornici dogovore određeni paušalni iznos, bilo kao fiksni, bilo kao procenat od glavnice, bilo kombinovano, tako da se taj iznos duguje na ime troškova obrade kredita, onda se navedeni iznos duguje nevezano od toga da li u konkretnom slučaju ti troškovi postoje i, ako postoje, da li se po visini poklapaju s određenim paušalnim iznosom. U suprotnom bi volja strana bila izneverena, i otvorio bi se put nesavesnim ugovornicima da naknadno umanjuju svoje ugovorom preuzete obaveze dokazujući da iznos koji je paušalno dogovoren na ime naknade određenog troška ne odgovara stvarnom trošku koji je nastao za drugu stranu. Ovo bi ugrozilo primenu svih postojećih tarifa koje u sebi sadrže paušalno određene iznose naknade troškova, a bilo bi suprotno i fundamentalnom načelu pacta sunt servanda, odnosno da ugovorne strane treba da ispune svoje ugovorne obaveze onako kako glase (član 17 ZOO; ovo je i osnovno pravilo tumačenja ugovora, član 99 stav 1 ZOO). Zbog toga je pogrešna cela linija argumentacije u odlukama Višeg suda u Somboru koja je išla za tim da se veštačenjem utvrdi da li postoje troškovi na koje se odnosi paušalno određena naknada i da li su oni "ekonomski opravdani". Najjednostavnije rečeno, član 1065 ZOO uopšte nije podoban da odredbe ugovora o kreditu o kojima ne govori učini ništavim, jer taj član ništa ne zabranjuje, već samo definiše objektivno bitne elemente ugovora o kreditu. Osećajući da argument "ništav jer je suprotan članu 1065 ZOO" nije dovoljno dobar, neki tužioci su tvrdili da je posredi zelenaška odredba, ili odredba zabranjena članom 103 ZOO, ili ništava kao neodređena zbog člana 47 u vezi sa članom 105 ZOO. Ove argumente, međutim, s izuzetkom pozivanja na član 47 ZOO, nije prihvatio nijedan sud, ni oni koji su našli da je odredba ništava ni oni koji su našli da je odredba punovažna (oni su ove argumente izričito odbili). U pogledu zelenaške odredbe, nije nezamislivo da ceo ugovor o kreditu, a ne samo ova odredba, bude pogođen sankcijom ništavosti ako su ispunjeni uslovi da bi se on kvalifikovao kao zelenaški, ali radi se o nizu dodatnih uslova koje treba dokazati, što će biti teško kad se radi o bankarskom poslovanju (a ne uzimanju zajma od "zelenaša"). Stvar isto stoji i ako bi se dokazala neka mana volje ili prekomerno oštećenje, ali ovde je prilično jasno da za to nisu ispunjeni uslovi, niti su to tvrdili tužioci. U pogledu tvrdnje da je odredba zabranjena po članu 103 ZOO, koji glasi "Ugovor koji je protivan prinudnim propisima, javnom poretku ili dobrim običajima je ništav ako cilj povređenog pravila ne upućuje na neku drugu sankciju ili ako zakon u određenom slučaju ne propisuje što drugo", sudovi su jasno (i ispravno) stali na stanovište da odredba o obavezi naknade troškova obrade kredita nije suprotna ni prinudnim propisima, ni javnom poretku, ni dobrim običajima. Čak ni sudovi koji su našli da je ugovor ništav jer je suprotan članu 1065 ZOO najčešće nisu to izričito povezivali s članom 103 ZOO, u smislu da je član 1065 ZOO prinudni propis, pa da je onda naknada troškova obrade kredita ništava s pozivom na član 103 ZOO, jer je suprotna prinudnom propisu iz člana 1065, što je inače moglo da se očekuje u tim obrazloženjima. Najposle, u vezi s argumentom iz odluke Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije generally accepted standard in loan agreements, known under the name of loan processing fee and loan application fee (the English terms were used in the Serbian original of the decision). Finding that, in commercial loan agreements, the usual amount of this fee is around 2.5%, the court determined that contracting this fee is mentioned as standard practice in the annual report of the European Banking Authority (EBA). Lastly, the court quoted the data on the usual amount of this fee in the region, which are published at the website of the Association of Serbian Banks, ranging between 1-1.5%, increased by a certain fixed amount. This analysis led the court to the conclusion that the agreed fee in the amount of 0.4% in this particular case is not violating the principle of equivalence of mutual performances in the sense of Article 15 ZOO. At the very end, the court concluded that this clause was a part of the general terms and conditions of the bank, and that it was inserted in the loan agreement in a clear and precise manner, which was conscientiously accepted by the plaintiff by signing the agreement, therefore excluding the possibility of a breach of the principle of the freedom of contract.

Analysis of Presented Case Law of the Serbian Courts
Regarding the case law of domestic courts that has been presented above, the first thing that comes to mind to a person that deals with the law from an academic perspective is the fact that almost all decisions were passed without any consideration of the provisions of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers or the general Law on Consumer Protection, regardless of whether the decision was that the disputed clause on loan processing fee is valid or invalid. This is, to some extent, understandable when it comes to the decision of commercial courts, because they inherently do not apply the so-called "consumer law" because they deal with commercial disputes, yet in respect of the particular issue, the consideration of the provisions of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers is all but senseless, even if this law does not apply to the concrete dispute (besides, a good example for that is the chronologically last decision of the Commercial Court in Niš, which could not avoid considering this because the defendant bank, i.e. its attorney, invoked this law). In respect of the decisions of courts of general competence, this makes one wonder, to say the least. The exception is only the chronologically last decision, which has, in its reasoning, considered not only the provisions of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers, but also the provisions of the Law on Banks. Therefore, most of the arguments that exist in domestic case law are related to the ZOO, as the general law the provisions of which regulate the loan contract as a nominated contract.
Even a superficial view at the arguments put forward in favor of invalidity of the clause on the loan processing fee testifies that these arguments cannot survive any comprehensive analysis. The basic argument is that such a clause is invalid "because it is contrary to Article 1065 ZOO". Article 1065 ZOO reads: "By a contract of loan the bank shall assume the obligation to place at the disposal of a loan beneficiary a specific amount of money, for a definite or indefinite period of time, and for specific purpose or without such purpose, while the beneficiary shall assume an obligation to pay to the bank the stipulated interest and repay the received amount of money, at the time and in the way determined by the contract". This Article defines the so-called objectively essential terms of the loan contract as a nominated contract (on division of contractual terms see Živković, 2006, 33-35), i.e. the basic obligations of both parties from this contract. The objectively essential terms of nominated contracts serve to distinguish such contracts from the ones that are similar, and are a consequence of certain particular contracts becoming typical. The quoted Article in no place forbids the bank to stipulate some other obligations of the loan user apart from the interest, of course in line with the existing limits of freedom of contract. Apart from the objectively essential terms, the principle of freedom of contract allows the parties to, within the limits of the mandatory law, public policy and good faith, stipulate numerous other contractual clauses. After all, this stems from the provision of Article 1066 para. 2 ZOO, which reads: "The following shall be specified by a loan contract: the amount, Apelacionog suda u Beogradu iz decembra 2017. godine, da odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita nije određena jer se ne zna na šta se tačno ti troškovi odnose, pa je otud ništava po članu 47 ZOO, valja imati na umu da je predmet ove obaveze isplata novčanog iznosa, te da je taj iznos određen bilo kao fiksni, bilo kao procenat od iznosa glavnice kredita, bilo kao kombinacija ova dva metoda, pa je sasvim očigledno da je predmet obaveze, u smislu člana 47 ZOO, određen, odnosno odrediv. Pitanje određenosti moglo bi se postaviti ako bi strane predvidele da korisnik banci treba da naknadi neke troškove, bez navođenja paušalnog iznosa koji se plaća na ime naknade, i to samo ako se pravilima tumačenja ne bi moglo utvrditi na koje se troškove takva odredba odnosi. Onog momenta kad je iznos naknade kvantifikovan kao paušal, argument neodređenosti otpada.

Sopstvena analiza pitanja dozvoljenosti odredbe o naknadi troškova obrade kredita
Poslednji deo slagalice, međutim, predstavlja razmatranje koje ne uzima u obzir samo argumentaciju koju su dosad isticali Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije terms and conditions of initiating, utilizing and repaying the loan", from which it is clear that the parties have the possibility to stipulate different terms of conditions of granting the loan, which includes the possibility to stipulate the obligation of the loan user to pay the loan processing fee to the bank. Article 1065 most certainly does not prescribe that "the bank has only the right to the expenses that actually occurred due to the lending relation", as claimed in the decision of the Supreme Court of Serbia from 2000, and repeated in the decisions of the Higher Court in Sombor. This primarily because the provision of Article 1065 does not refer to any expenses of either party in the lending relation, and especially does not refer to the "actual expenses incurred". Admittedly, the parties could stipulate that the loan user is to compensate the bank for the "actual costs" incurred related to the loan, in which case the loan user would owe the compensation for those costs that the bank can prove. However, if the parties agree to a lump sum, be it as a fixed amount, as a percentage from the principal of the loan, or combined, so that this amount is owed as a compensation of the loan processing costs, then such amount is owed irrespective of whether in the concrete case these costs actually exist and, if they do, whether their actual amount equals the said lump sum in the concrete case. Otherwise, the will of the parties would be let down and twisted, and the route would be wide open for the malicious parties to subsequently reduce their contractually accepted obligations by proving that the amount that was stipulated as a lump sum to cover some costs does not equal the actual costs incurred by the other party. This would endanger the application of all existing tariffs which contain clauses on compensation of costs by a lump sum, and would also contradict the fundamental principle that pacta sunt servanda, i.e. that the contractual parties should perform their contractual obligations as they are stipulated (Article 17 ZOO; this is also the basic rule of interpretation of contracts, Article 99 para. 1 ZOO). Therefore the whole line of argumentation in the decisions of the Higher Court in Sombor, which followed the line of determining, by expert findings, whether the costs covered by the loan processing fee exist and whether they are "economically justified" is fallible. To put it simply, Article 1065 ZOO is not at all capable of making the clauses of the loan contract which it does not refer to invalid, because that Article does not forbid anything, but rather defines the objectively essential terms of the loan contract. This quite clearly stems from Article 1066 para. 2 ZOO. To extract from Article 1065 ZOO the position that the banks have only the right to charge interest based on loan contracts is not only semantically and logically unsustainable, but is also evidently contrary to the numerous provisions of other laws which pertain to banking operations and define the terms of the loan contract in more detail, such as Article 19 of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers and Article 43 of the Law on Banks.
Sensing that the argument "invalid because it is contrary to Article 1065 ZOO" is not good enough, some plaintiffs claimed that this clause is usurious, or that it is invalid under Article 103 ZOO, or invalid due to vagueness (as unspecified) under Article 47 ZOO related to Article 105 ZOO (on partial invalidity). These arguments, however, with the exception in regard of invoking Article 47 ZOO, were not accepted by any of the courts, be it those that found the clause invalid be it those that found it fully valid (they explicitly rejected these arguments). Concerning the claim that the clause is usurious, it is not beyond imagination that the whole loan agreement, and not only this clause, is sanctioned by nullity if the conditions for it to be classified as usurious are met, but that would require a lot of additional conditions to be proven, which should be exceptionally difficult in case of banking operations (and not borrowing from "loan sharks"). The same applies in the case of the deficiencies in the will of the parties or laesio enormis, but here it is quite clear that the conditions for this were not met, nor have the plaintiffs claimed so. In respect of the claim that the clause on loan processing fee is contrary to Article 103 para. 1 ZOO, that reads: "A contract contrary to compulsory regulations, public policy or fair usage shall be void unless the purpose of the rule violated refers to another sanction, or unless the law provides for something else in the specific case", the courts have clearly (and rightfully) Ako se radi o zasebno, pregovorima utvrđenoj naknadi koja nije deo opštih uslova poslovanja banke, smatram nespornim da odredba proizvodi pravno dejstvo, razume se osim ako bi bili ispunjeni uslovi za poništaj u smislu mana volje, prekomernog oštećenja, zelenaškog ugovora, prividnog ugovora i sl. Ugovaranje naknade u uobičajenom iznosu, bilo fiksnom, bilo u procentu od glavnice, bilo kombinacijom tih metoda, svakako nije zabranjeno domaćim pravom. Uostalom, to nije zabranjeno ni u jednoj državi Evrope, uključujući i Nemačku, i proizlazi iz temeljnog načela slobode ugovaranja. Dakle, posebno ugovorena naknada troškova obrade kredita, mimo opštih uslova poslovanja banke, punovažna je.
Kad je reč o redovnoj situaciji, u kojoj je odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita deo opštih uslova poslovanja ("tarifa") banke, bitno je razlikovati da li je posredi "potrošački" ili "nepotrošački" ugovor o kreditu. Na Podsećanja radi, odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita u Nemačkoj je proglašena ništavom zahvaljujući sledećem sledu argumenata i zaključaka: ova odredba deo je opštih uslova poslovanja banke; ona ne predstavlja ni glavnu protivprestaciju (to je kamata), ni prestaciju za neke druge usluge korisniku kredita, već se radi o dodatku na cenu kredita posredstvom "prevaljivanja" troškova koji nastaju kao troškovi radnji koje banka preduzima u sopstvenom interesu, a ne u interesu korisnika kredita, usled čega ovakva odredba podleže sadržinskoj kontroli opštih uslova od strane suda i može biti utvrđena njena ništavost i mimo slučaja kad je nejasna ili nerazumljiva; dispozitivne zakonske odredbe predstavljaju "pravednu meru" raspodele obaveza i interesa između strana u imenovanim ugovorima u očima zakonodavca; menjanje ove raspodele obaveza (prevaljivanje tereta troškova) posredstvom opštih uslova poslovanja jedne strane suprotno je načelu savesnosti i poštenja, nepravično je i preterano je teško za drugu stranu pa su takve odredbe opštih uslova zato ništave, s pozivom na § 307 BGB, koji u prevodu glasi: "(1) Odredbe u opštim uslovima poslovanja su bez dejstva, ako, protivno zahtevima savesnosti i poštenja, saugovarača korisnika stavljaju u nesrazmerno nepovoljan položaj. Nesrazmerno nepovoljan položaj može takođe da proizađe i iz činjenice da odredba nije jasna i razumljiva. (2) U slučaju sumnje, smatra se da nesrazmerno nepovoljan položaj postoji ako 1. odredba nije u skladu sa bitnim osnovama zakonskog uređenja, od kojeg se odstupa, ili 2. se odredbom u toj meri ograničavaju bitna prava ili obaveze, koje proizlaze iz prirode ugovora, da je ugroženo postizanje svrhe ugovora. (3) Stavovi 1. i 2. kao i § § 308. i 309. važe samo za odredbe opštih uslova poslovanja, kojima se dogovaraju pravila koja odstupaju od zakonskih odredbi ili ih dopunjuju. Ostale odredbe mogu biti bez dejstva prema stavu 1., 2. rečenica u vezi sa stavom 1., 1. rečenica." (prevod autora). Ovo važi kako za "potrošačke" tako i za "nepotrošačke" ugovore o kreditu. should bear in mind that the subject matter of this obligation is payment of a certain sum of money, and that this amount is specified either as a fixed amount, as a percentage of the loan principal or as a combination of these two methods, so it is quite obvious that the subject matter of the obligation, in the sense of Article 47 ZOO, is specified, i.e. specifiable. The issue of specification could come into play if the parties would stipulate that the loan user should pay the bank for some of its expenses, without specifying the lump sum payable in lieu of such compensation, and even that only in case when applying the rules of interpretation could not determine which expenses this clause referred to. The moment the amount of the loan processing fee is quantified as a lump sum, the argument of non-specificity falls out. The court decisions that determine that the loan processing fee clause is null and void also mention the violation of the principle of good faith prescribed by Article 12 ZOO, and the violation of the principle of equivalence of mutual consideration prescribed by Article 15 ZOO. None of these claims are elaborated in any detail -it appears that charging the so-called "internal costs" of the bank from a loan user, i.e. "shifting" them to the client, is considered as violation of the good faith principle, which could be the case if it were done in a concealed and non-transparent manner (for instance, by using small-print letters at the bottom of general terms and conditions), but not in the cases when it was contracted clearly, precisely and transparently and if the overall cost of the loan processing fee was clearly presented to the loan user. As for the violation of the principle of equivalence in bilaterally binding, i.e. onerous contracts, the courts, firstly, fully oversee the second paragraph of Article 15 ZOO, which prescribes that the cases where violation of this principle invokes legal consequence shall be determined by the law, which actually means that this provision is not directly applicable but rather a basis for the application of some other provisions (on laesio enormis, usury etc.). Therefore, the court should not be able to invoke Article 15 ZOO in order to substantiate its position that the clause on the loan processing fee is invalid, but rather, if it actually finds the principle of equivalence to have been breached, it must invoke some of the articles that provide for the sanction of nullity for the case of equivalence principle breach, which was not the case. The second problem with invoking this provision is the fact that a breach of equivalence, as a rule, is not determined in respect to each individual part of the contract, but rather in respect of the contract as a whole, so therefore the finding must be that in these contracts the loan user has paid too much for the benefit s/he gains by the granted loan, taking into consideration the interest as well as all other fees and expenses paid by the loan user. Bearing in mind that all these fees and expenses are taken into consideration during the calculation of the annual percentage rate of interest, and that this rate is, in ultima linea, determined by the market conditions, the breach of equivalence could be determined if the annual percentage interest rate is significantly above the market rate at the time of execution of the contract, and even then in order to determine the nullity of the contract further conditions must be fulfilled (for laesio enormis or the usury). Even if the breach of equivalence would be narrowed down only to the issue of the loan processing fee, as long as its amount is around the usual 2-2.5% of the loan principal, there is actually no breach of equivalence; a breach could occur only if the usual limits were gravely exceeded, and even then it would lead to (partial) nullity only if further conditions were met. (2) Sud može odbiti primenu pojedinih odredbi opštih uslova koje lišavaju drugu stranu prava da stavi prigovore, ili onih na osnovu kojih ona gubi prava iz ugovora ili gubi rokove, ili koje su inače nepravične ili preterano stroge prema njoj". Prvi stav ovog člana odnosi se na odredbe opštih uslova koje su u gruboj nesaglasnosti sa zaključenim ugovorom i dobrim poslovnim običajima, i ove odredbe pogađa sankcijom ništavosti. Ono što se kod nas u doktrini obično naglašava, a što je za jednu državu s polu-planskom socijalističkom privredom 1978. godine zaista bilo sasvim revolucionarno, jeste ovlašćenje suda da utvrdi ništavost takvih odredbi čak i ako su opšti uslovi koji ih sadrže odobreni od nadležnog (upravnog) organa (Perović, 1981, 224;Đorđević i Stanković, 1987, 199-200, Radišić, 1990, 1990Vilus, 1983, 431-439). Drugi stav ovog člana nešto je drugačiji, pa za odredbe opštih uslova o kojima je tu reč predviđa da im sud može odbiti primenu, što je nijansiranije rešenje, jer zapravo ne znači ništavost, već ovlašćenje sudu da odbije zahtev zasnovan na takvoj odredbi opštih uslova. U ishodu, ovakve odredbe opštih uslova stvaraju, zapravo, prirodne obligacije, jer u slučaju da ih obavezno lice dobrovoljno ispuni one nisu ispunjene bez osnova i ne mogu se tražiti nazad, ali poverilac ne može ishodovati ispunjenje sudskim putem. Za ovu temu od značaja može biti samo poslednja kategorija odredbi opštih uslova poslovanja o kojima govori stav 2, a to su inače nepravične i preterano stroge odredbe. Ako bi se uzelo da odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita predstavlja takvu odredbu (da ne bude zabune, ja smatram da po našem pravu ona nije takva), to ponovo ne bi bilo od značaja za postojeće sudske postupke. Ovi se postupci, naime, ne vode po tužbama banaka koje traže isplatu ove naknade, kad bi sud mogao da odbije primenu ovih odredaba s pozivom na to da su nepravične ili preterano stroge prema korisniku kredita. Korisnici kredita su, u gotovo svim slučajevima, ovu naknadu platili već prilikom stavljanja kredita u tečaj, dakle odmah, a kako za ovakve odredbe ZOO ne predviđa sankciju ništavosti već mogućnost suda da odbije primenu tih opštih uslova ako bi neki zahtev bio zasnovan na njima, na osnovu nje nije moguće utvrditi da su ovakve odredbe ništave, i potom zasnovati kondikcijski zahtev iz neosnovanog obogaćenja. U ovoj se tački naše pravo opštih uslova poslovanja u ZOO i ono iz nemačkog BGB bitno razlikuju. Dakle, kao osnov za ništavost preostaje samo stav 1 člana 143 ZOO, pa se odluka svodi na odgovor na pitanje da li je odredba o naknadi troškova obrade kredita, u iznosu od oko 2% glavnice (dakle, vrednosti celokupnog ugovora), "protivna samom cilju zaključenog ugovora ili dobrim poslovnim običajima". Cilju ugovora o kreditu bilo bi protivno, recimo, da se ne plaća kamata, da se glavnica ne mora uopšte vratiti, da se kamata duguje i za deo glavnice koji još nije pušten u tečaj ili za otplaćeni deo glavnice, All of this demonstrates that there is no doubt, at least taking into consideration the arguments contained in the analyzed case law of domestic courts, that the arguments put forward by the courts taking the position that the clause on the loan processing fee is valid absolutely prevail. These decisions have the starting point in the principle of freedom of contract (Article 10 ZOO), and the lack of either general (Article 103 ZOO) or specific grounds for determining invalidity of this clause. As it was explained above, none of the special grounds for nullity, invoked by the parties to the proceedings and the courts that found this clause to be invalid, actually stand, so one should take this clause to be valid.

Additional Analysis of the Issue of Legality of the Loan Processing Fee Clause
The last piece of the puzzle, however, is a (re) consideration of the issue that does not restrict itself to the arguments put forward by those seeking declaration of nullity and the courts that accepted such claims (which, as demonstrated, are not enough for such conclusion), but also all the other possible arguments. To put it simply, one needs to verify whether the arguments and line of reasoning of the German BGH would also be applicable within the framework of the domestic law. In order to perform such analysis, one must firstly distinguish the situations in which the loan processing fee is individually stipulated, which is extremely rare in commercial practice, from the situations in which the clause on the loan processing fee is a part of general terms and conditions, i.e. tariffs of a bank, which is regularly the case. Subsequently, a further distinction should be made in respect of whether the particular loan agreement is concluded with a consumer (in the sense of legislation pertaining to the protection of financial services consumers and to the general consumer protection) or whether it is a commercial loan agreement (commercial, non-consumer contract).
If the loan processing fee is individually agreed by negotiations, outside the context of the bank's general tariffs, in the author's view there is no doubt that such clause is valid, naturally except in the cases when the special conditions for nullity in terms of will deficiencies, laesio enormis, usury, simulation and the like are met. Contracting this fee in a usual amount, be it fixed, a percentage of the loan principal or a combination of the two methods, is by all means not forbidden under the domestic law. Moreover, this is not forbidden in any country in Europe, including Germany, and stems from the fundamental principle of the freedom of contract. Thus, the individually contracted loan processing fee, which is not the part of the general terms and conditions of a bank, is legally valid.
In respect of the most common situation, when the clause on the loan processing fee is a part of the bank's general terms and conditions ("tariffs"), one needs to distinguish whether the loan agreement is a "consumer" or a "non-consumer" one. In the case of "nonconsumer" loan agreements only the general contractual provisions pursuant to ZOO are applied, while in respect of "consumer" loan agreement the special regulations on consumer protection apply as well -primarily the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers and the general Law on Consumer Protection (either when the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers refers to it or without such referral, when it applies as lex generalis in the area of consumer protection). Given the fact that the author has already put forward the position that stipulating this clause outside of the context of general terms and conditions is by all means allowed, the focus of the analysis now shifts to the legal provisions of the general terms and conditions.
It is worth reminding that the clause on loan processing fee has been declared invalid in Germany after the following line of arguments and conclusions: this clause is the part of general terms and conditions of a bank; it is neither a main consideration (the interest is), nor a consideration for some other services rendered to the loan user, but rather an addition to the price of the loan through shifting the incurred costs as the costs of activities undertaken by the bank in its own interest, and not in the interest of the loan user, therefore this clause is subject to the content control of the general terms and conditions by the court and its invalidity may be determined even if it is not unclear or incomprehensible; in the Živković M. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law sasvim uobičajena. Dovoljno je samo pogledati godišnje izveštaje European Banking Authority (EBA), organa EU nadležnog za nadzor bankarskog sektora, kao i izveštaje nacionalnih udruženja banaka da bi se zaključilo da je ova naknada uobičajena i veoma česta, pa bi bilo potpuno neispravno tvrditi da je suprotna dobrim poslovnim običajima. Naplaćivanje ove naknade na ovaj način (unapred u vidu procenta, fiksnog iznosa ili kombinacijom ovih metoda) namesto kao dela kamate zapravo ima vrlo racionalno ekonomsko opravdanje, i vodi tome da klijenti u zbiru plaćaju na ime ove naknade manje nego kad bi ona bila uračunata u kamatu (pre svega zbog izostanka kreditnog rizika i s njim povezane premije na rizik, ali i zbog diskontovanja novčanih tokova banke i korisnika kredita različitim stopama) (Begović, 2018, 6-8). Zbog toga je razdvajanje naknade troškova, s jedne, i cene kapitala u užem smislu (kamate), s druge strane, koje ukupnu cenu kredita čini dvo-odnosno višekomponentnom, zapravo deo dobrih poslovnih običaja, a ne suprotno takvim običajima.
(2) An unreasonable disadvantage is, in case of doubt, to be assumed to exist if a provision 1. is not compatible with the essential principles of the statutory provision from which it deviates, or 2. limits the essential rights or duties inherent in the nature of the contract to such an extent that the attainment of the purpose of the contract is jeopardized.
(3) Subsections (1) and (2) above, and sections 308 and 309 apply only to the provisions in the standard business terms on the basis of which arrangements derogating from legal provisions, or arrangements supplementing those legal provisions, are agreed. Other provisions may be ineffective under subsection (1) sentence 2 above, in conjunction with subsection (1) sentence 1 above." (translation by the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection in cooperation with juris GmbH). This applies both to the "consumer" and "non-consumer" loan agreements. The provisions of ZOO on general terms and conditions (Articles 142 and 143) significantly differ from the provisions of the German BGB. In Germany, the law on the general terms and conditions of business was developed through the case law of the courts that relied upon § 242 BGB, and thereafter, starting from 1977, it was regulated by a separate statute, the Law on Regulation of General Terms and Conditions of Business (AGB-Gesetz), the substantive provisions of which were, by subsequent reforms, as of 1 January 2002 incorporated in the text of the Civil Code (BGB). The procedural provisions became a separate statute, the Law on Actions for Injunction (Unterlassungsklagegesetz, UKlaG), that also came into force on 1 January 2002. However, the ZOO also contains the rule on nullity of individual clauses of general terms and conditions, i.e. Article 143, which reads: "(1) Provisions of the general terms and conditions shall be null and void if contrary to the very purpose of the contract which is concluded, or to the fair business usage, even after such general terms and conditions containing them have been approved by the competent agency.
(2) The court may deny application of specific provisions of the general terms and conditions precluding the other party to raise demurrers, or of those on the ground of which such party is left without contractual rights or loses time limits, or those which are otherwise unjust or excessively strict towards such party". The first paragraph of this Article pertains to the clauses of general terms and conditions that are in grave contradiction to the executed contract and fair usage, and such clauses are sanctioned by nullity. What is usually emphasized in the legal writings in Serbia, and what was indeed quite revolutionary for a country with the semi-administrative economy in 1978, is the authorization given to the court to declare the invalidity of such clauses even though the general terms and conditions containing them were approved by the competent (administrative) body (Perović, 1981, 224;Đorđević and Stanković, 1987, 199-200, Radišić, 1990, 1990Vilus, 1983, 431-439). The second paragraph of this Article is somewhat different, and provides for the provisions to which it pertains that the court may deny their application, which is a more nuanced solution, because it, in fact, does not imply nullity, but rather the authorization of the court to deny a claim based upon such a provision of the general terms and conditions. As a result, these provisions of general terms and conditions actually create the natural obligations, because in case the debtor voluntarily performs them, they are not performed without a cause and may not be claimed back, but the creditor cannot achieve court enforcement. For the topic of this paper only the last category of provisions referred to in paragraph 2 is relevant, i.e. provisions that are otherwise unjust or excessively strict. If one took the provisions on the loan processing fee Živković M. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law određeno pravno sredstvo za zaštitu svojih prava, a naročito nametanje obaveze potrošaču da sporove rešava pred arbitražom na način koji je u suprotnosti sa odredbama ovog zakona; 4) sprečavanje ili ograničavanje mogućnosti da se potrošač upozna sa dokazima ili prebacivanje tereta dokazivanja na potrošača u slučaju kada je teret dokazivanja na trgovcu, u skladu sa zakonom; 5) određivanje mesne nadležnosti suda van prebivališta, odnosno boravišta potrošača. Nepravičnom ugovornom odredbom po ovom članu smatra se i ugovorna odredba na osnovu koje trgovac ima: 1) isključivo pravo da utvrdi da li su isporučena roba ili pružene usluge u skladu sa ugovorom; 2) isključivo pravo tumačenja ugovornih odredaba. Član 45 tog zakona nabraja odredbe za koje se oborivo pretpostavlja da su nepravične uz mogućnost suprotnog dokaza. To su odredbe čiji je predmet ili posledica: 1) ograničenje ili isključenje prava potrošača prema trgovcu ili trećoj strani u slučaju potpunog ili delimičnog neispunjenja bilo koje ugovorne obaveze trgovca, uključujući ograničenje ili isključenje prava potrošača da prebije potraživanje koje ima prema trgovcu sa potraživanjem koje trgovac ima prema potrošaču; 2) davanje ovlašćenja trgovcu da zadrži sve što je primio od potrošača u slučaju da potrošač povredi ugovornu obavezu ili odbije da zaključi ugovor, ako isto pravo nije garantovano potrošaču; 3) obavezivanje potrošača koji je povredio ugovornu obavezu da trgovcu plati naknadu u iznosu koji značajno premašuje iznos pretrpljene štete; 4) pravo trgovca da jednostrano raskine ugovor u bilo kom trenutku, ako isto pravo nije garantovano potrošaču; 5) pravo trgovca da jednostrano raskine ugovor zaključen na neodređeno vreme bez ostavljanja primerenog otkaznog roka, osim u slučaju ako potrošač ne izvršava svoje ugovorne obaveze; 6) prećutno produženje ugovora zaključenog na određeno vreme, ako je potrebno da potrošač izjavi da ne pristaje na produženje ugovora u roku koji je neprimereno dugačak u odnosu na rok na koji je ugovor zaključen; 7) pravo trgovca da na bilo koji način poveća ugovorenu cenu, ako nije ugovoreno pravo potrošača da u tom slučaju raskine ugovor; 8) obavezivanje potrošača da izvrši sve svoje ugovorne obaveze u slučaju da trgovac ne izvrši svoje ugovorne obaveze u celosti; 9) davanje ovlašćenja trgovcu da prenese svoje ugovorne obaveze na treće lice bez saglasnosti potrošača; 10) ograničavanje prava potrošača da preproda robu ograničavanjem prenosivosti garancije koju je dao trgovac; 11) davanje ovlašćenja trgovcu da jednostrano menja sadržinu ugovornih odredaba, uključujući obeležja robe ili usluga; 12) jednostrana izmena ugovornih odredaba koje su potrošaču saopštene na trajnom nosaču zapisa, saopštavanjem novih odredaba sa kojima se potrošač nije saglasio putem sredstava komunikacije na daljinu. to fall within that category (to avoid confusion, we emphasize that we do not consider it as such under domestic law), that would again be irrelevant for the existing court disputes. These disputes, namely, are not carried out upon actions of the banks requesting payment of the loan processing fee, in which case the court would be empowered to deny the application of these provisions due to them being unjust or excessively strict towards the loan user. The loan users have, in almost all cases, paid this fee at the time the loan was released, i.e. immediately, and since the ZOO does not provide nullity, but rather the possibility of a denied application for such provisions if some of the claims were based upon them, this provision of ZOO cannot serve as the basis for the declaration of invalidity of such clauses and subsequent claims based on unjust enrichment. At this point our law on general terms and conditions significantly differs from its German counterpart. So, only paragraph 1 of Article 143 remains as a possible ground for nullity, and the decision depends upon whether the clause on the loan processing fee, amounting to around 2% of the loan principal (hence, the value of the whole contract), is "contrary to the very purpose of contract which is concluded, or to the fair business usage". It would be contrary to the very purpose of a loan contract to, for example, prescribe that there is no interest, that the principal need not be repaid, that the interest is due even for the part of the principal which has not been paid out yet or that has already been repaid, which are the examples of the clauses that directly twist and change the essential terms of the loan contract as provided in Article 1065 ZOO. Bearing in mind that Article 1066 ZOO explicitly provides that the conditions for granting loan are determined by the loan contract, and the mentioned provisions of Article 43 of the Law on Banks and Article 19 of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers, it seems beyond dispute that a clause such as the one on loan processing fee is not contrary to the very purpose of the loan contract, because the main obligations arising therefrom, granting of loan and its repayment with interest, remain intact. As for the fair business usage, we believe it to be clear that the clause on the loan processing fee is not contrary to them, but rather quite common and usual. A glance at the annual reports of the European Banking Authority (EBA), the EU body competent for the supervision of banking industry, as well as at the reports of national bank associations, suffices to reach a conclusion that this fee is usual and very frequent, so it would be completely wrong to claim that it is contrary to fair business usage. Charging this fee in this manner (in advance as a percentage, as fixed amount or the combination of these methods) instead of charging it as a part of the interest, in fact has a very rational economic explanation, and leads to the clients paying, on aggregate, less for this fee than if it would have been a part of the interest (primarily because there is no credit risk and thereto related risk premium, but also due to discounted money flows of the bank and the loan user by different rates) (Begović, 2018, 6-8). This is why the separation of the loan processing costs, on the one hand, and the price of capital (interest), on the other, which makes the overall loan price bi-or multi-component, is in fact the part of fair business usage, and not contrary to them. Therefore, the inevitable conclusion is that under the Serbian ZOO, unlike the German BGB and the case law of the German courts based upon it, the clause on loan processing fee is legally valid from the point of view of the law on general terms and conditions of business. In that sense, the author finds that the reasoning of the Austrian OGH -which also found that this clause, under the Austrian law, is not contrary to the very purpose of the loan contract, nor to the demands of good faith and fair dealings, and that it is not excessively burdensome for loan users, provided that, understandably, its amount is around the usual amount -is closer to the situation in the Serbian law.
The only remaining part is the analysis of the consumer protection regulations as a possible ground for determination of nullity of the clause on loan processing fee, in case of a consumer loan contract. Two articles of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers are dedicated to the general terms and conditions of business, i.e. Articles 9 and 10. These articles prescribe that a bank is obliged to secure the application of fair business usage, good business practices and fair relation with the users by the general
Pravno posmatrano, odluka o ništavosti odredbe o naknadi troškova obrade kredita predstavljala bi značajan udarac za pravnu izvesnost u Srbiji i značila bi narušavanje načela slobode ugovaranja kao temeljnog načela na kom počiva institucija ugovora i ugovorno pravo. Imajući u vidu decenijsku praksu naplate naknade troškova obrade kredita, te raniju sudsku praksu koja je godinama stajala na stanovištu da je takvo ugovaranje načelno dozvoljeno, promena sudske prakse bez zakonodavne promene, dakle promena stava sudova zasnovanog na istim zakonskim odredbama kao i raniji suprotan stav, bila bi značajan udarac za pravnu izvesnost upravo zbog retroaktivnog dejstva takve promene sudske prakse. Naime, ako bi srpski zakonodavac odlučio da izrekom zabrani ugovaranje naknade troškova obrade kredita, takva bi zakonska odredba mogla delovati samo pro futuro, a sasvim izuzetno bi mogla da ima retroaktivno dejstvo. Ako bi, međutim, sudovi promenili svoju praksu u primeni istog (neizmenjenog) pravnog okvira, to bi pogodilo ne samo ugovore zaključene posle takve promene sudske prakse, već i retroaktivno sve ugovore zaključene pre nje, gde bi granica mogla biti istek roka zastarelosti od 10 godina (inače, u Nemačkoj je odgovarajući rok 3 godine, pa su odlukama BGH bili zahvaćeni samo ugovori o kreditu zaključeni u periodu od 3 godine pre objavljivanja navedenih odluka; uz to, u Nemačkoj doktrina zabrane prevaljivanja troškova putem opštih uslova Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije terms and conditions, as well as their adherence to the statutory regulations, and it is explicitly determined that bank tariffs are deemed a part of the general terms and conditions. They also prescribe the conditions for the incorporation of general terms and conditions into individual contracts, in the sense of their availability and publication, as well as the duty of a bank to provide the explanations of the provisions of the general terms and conditions to the users. Article 41 of the same Law could also be of significance, for it refers to the unfair business practices and unfair contract terms, providing the competence of the National Bank of Serbia to determine whether such practices, i.e. terms exist, as well as the authority of the NBS to order cessation of their application and fine those banks that applied the unfair business practices and unfair contract terms. When it comes to the definition of unfair business practices and unfair contract terms, this Law refers to the general consumer protection legislation, i.e. to the general Law on Consumer Protection. Article 43 of the Law on Consumer Protection, relating to the unfair contract terms, is of relevance for the analyzed issue. According to this Article, unfair contract terms are null and void, and an unfair term is every term that, contrary to the requirement of good faith, causes a significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the contractual parties to the detriment of the consumer. According to this article, whether a contract term is unfair or not is determined based upon the following four criteria: nature of goods or services to which the contract relates; circumstances under which the contract is executed; other terms of the same contract or other related contract; the way the agreement on the contents has been reached and manner in which the consumer has been informed on the content of the contract. Article 44 of the same Law lists the terms that are always considered unfair. These are the terms that, as their subject or consequence, have: 1) excluding or limiting the legal liability of a seller or supplier in the event of the death of a consumer or personal injury to the latter resulting from an act or omission of the trader; 2) limiting the trader's obligation to respect commitments undertaken on his behalf by his agents or, conditioning the obligation of the trader to perform or accept the obligation taken over on their behalf by their agent with a particular condition which is at the trader's discretion; 3) excluding or hindering the consumer's right to take legal action or exercise any other legal remedy for protection of their rights, particularly by requiring the consumer to take disputes exclusively to arbitration contrary to the legal provisions of this law; 4) restricting or limiting the evidence available to the consumer or imposing on him a burden of proof which, according to the applicable law, should lie with the trader; 5) determination of local jurisdiction outside of the place of domicile or residence of the consumer. Under this article, a contract term is also deemed unfair if it provides to the trader: 1) the exclusive right to establish whether the delivered goods or provided services are in conformity with the contract; 2) the exclusive right to interpret contract terms. Article 45 of that Law lists the terms which are presumed as unfair, with the possibility to prove the opposite. These are contract terms which have the following subject or consequence: 1) excluding or limiting the legal rights of the consumer vis-à-vis the trader or a third party in the event of total or partial nonperformance or inadequate performance by the trader of any of the contractual obligations, including the rights of the consumer to offset a debt owed to the trader against a claim which the consumer may have against him; 2) allowing the trader to retain a payment by the consumer where the latter fails to conclude or perform the contract, or refuses to conclude the contract, where the same right is not granted to the consumer; 3) requiring any consumer who fails to fulfil their contractual obligation to pay compensation which significantly exceeds the damage suffered by the trader; 4) allowing the trader to terminate the contract at will where the same right is not granted to the consumer; 5) enabling the trader to terminate an open-ended contract without reasonable notice except where the consumer has failed to perform their contractual obligations; 6) tacit renewal of a fixed-term contract, if it is required that the consumer gives a notice about not accepting the inappropriately long extension of the contract in relation to the period for which the contract has been concluded; 7) allowing the trader to increase the price agreed with the consumer when the contract was concluded without giving the consumer the right to terminate the contract; 8) obliging the consumer to fulfil Ekonomske posledice ovakve odluke takođe bi bile višestruke. Neposredna posledica, razume se, bila bi obaveza banaka da vrate naplaćeno po osnovu naknade za troškove obrade kredita, što je iznos umanjenja dobiti koji bi pretrpeli, u krajnjoj konsekvenci, akcionari tih banaka, jer oni snose rizik poslovanja banke. Iako nije objavljeno o kolikom se iznosu ukupno radi, prema nekim nezvaničnim kalkulacijama iznos tog gubitka je negde između 150 i 200 miliona evra, za poslednjih 10 godina. Ovaj gubitak akcionari bi svakako pokušali da nadomeste srazmernim povećanjem budućih prihoda, što bi dovelo do porasta kamatnih stopa na domaćem tržištu. Potreba da se troškovi obrade kredita uključe u kamatu imala bi efekat u istom smeru -rast kamatnih stopa, i to, kako je pokazano ranije, ne za iznos koji bi odgovarao iznosu naknade za troškove obrade kredita koja se plaća danas, unapred, već u bitno, ako ne i dvostruko uvećanom iznosu (zbog kreditnog rizika, premije na rizik i diskontovanja novčanih tokova različitom stopom). U krajnjoj liniji, dakle, gubitak bi zapravo bio prenet na buduće korisnike kredita, koji bi morali da plaćaju uvećane kamatne stope. A opšti rast kamatnih stopa za zaduživanje kod poslovnih banaka bi, sa svoje strane, značio smanjenje konkurentnosti domaće privrede u poređenju sa zemljama kod kojih ovog povećanja ne bi bilo (koje nastavljaju da primenjuju uobičajenu odredbu o naknadi troškova obrade kredita kao dozvoljenu), jer bi troškovi zaduživanja bili srazmerno veći. Takođe, opšti rast kamatnih stopa bi morao dovesti do pada stope investicija, budući da bi se umanjio broj investicionih projekata, stoga što, za njihovo započinjanje, očekivana stopa prinosa mora da bude viša od kamatne stope. Iako laicima "naknada troškova obrade kredita" deluje kao naplaćivanje nečega za ništa, strogo ekonomski posmatrano ona zapravo predstavlja najbolju praksu, i to baš naplaćivanje u procentu od glavnice jer se time postiže i redistributivna funkcija među korisnicima kredita, odnosno interno subvencionisanje koje omogućava uspostavljanje "vertikalne jednakosti" (Begović, 2018, 11-12). Razlog za to leži u činjenici da banka, kroz dvokomponentnost cene (troškovi+kamata), razdvaja naknadu svojih troškova od kamate kao cene kapitala (novca) u užem smislu, i svoje troškove naplaćuje odmah prilikom puštanja kredita u tečaj, bez kreditnog rizika, premije na rizik i potrebe diskonta na sadašnju vrednost, koji bi iznos ove naknade inače značajno povećali. Zato ovakva struktura cene kreditne usluge zapravo pogoduje korisnicima kredita, čiji su "ukupni odlivi" niži nego kad bi naknada bila uračunata u kamatu, i zbog toga se radi o tzv. najboljoj praksi kojoj pribegava najveći broj banaka u savremenom svetu.
Dakle, po mom mišljenju i u skladu s napred Živković M. O dozvoljenosti ugovaranja troškova obrade kredita u pravu Srbije all his obligations where the trader has failed to fulfil all his obligations; 9) giving the trader the possibility of transferring his obligations under the contract without the consumer's consent; 10) restricting the consumer's right to resell the goods by limiting the transferability of any guarantee provided by the trader; 11) enabling the trader to unilaterally alter the terms of the contract including the characteristics of the product or service; 12) unilaterally amending contract terms communicated to the consumer in a durable medium through contract terms to which the consumer has not consented through the means of remote communication. Since the clause on the loan processing fee cannot be considered as any of the terms listed in Articles 44 and 45 of the Law on Consumer Protection, only the analysis of the general provision on unfair contract terms remains, with the preceding note that the National Bank of Serbia, as the body that is authorized to determine and sanction the use of unfair contract terms in loan agreements under the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers, does not consider a clause on the loan processing fee an unfair contract term, i.e. does not consider it null and void (statement of the NBS Governor, Ms Jorgovanka Tabaković as of 14 February 2018, available at https://www.b92.net/biz/vesti/ srbija.php?yyyy=2018&mm=02&dd=14&nav_ id=1358787). Therefore, the question is whether the clause on the loan processing fee in the loan contract is such a contract term that, contrary to the requirements of good faith, causes a significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the contractual parties to the detriment of the consumer, taking into consideration the nature of the loan agreement, circumstances of its execution, other terms of the concerned or related contract, and the way of reaching the agreement on the contents and manner of informing the consumer about the contents of the contract. Starting from the last criterion, it is clear that the strict provisions of the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers in respect of the obligation to inform the users and to publish the fee tariffs, if they were respected in the concrete case, do not speak in favor of determining that this clause is unfair. Also, it seems that the fact that the loan processing fee is payable as a one-off advance payment at the moment of disbursement of the loan, in the amount that is, as a rule, significantly lower than the annual interest rate excludes the conclusion that this clause causes "significant imbalance in the rights and obligations of the contractual parties to the detriment of the consumer", and the mentioned obligations to inform and clarify contained in the Law on Protection of Financial Services Consumers, if performed, make the conclusion that the bank acted contrary to the requirement of good faith impossible. Lastly, the fact that the domestic Law on Consumer Protection is harmonized with the relevant EU directives (Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts and Directive 2011/83/EU of European Parliament and Council on the consumer rights of 25.10.2011), and that the courts in the EU countries did not find this clause to be contrary to these directives, also leads to the conclusion that the clause on the loan processing fee is not an unfair contract term in the sense of Article 43 of the Law on Consumer Protection, and that it is, thus, not invalid on those grounds.
The overall conclusion of this analysis would thus be that the contractual clause on loan processing fee is, as such, permitted and legally valid under the laws of the Republic of Serbia, irrespective of whether it is provided as part of the general terms and conditions of a bank or agreed individually, both in loan contracts with consumers and non-consumers (in commercial loan contracts), understandably under the condition that there is no other ground for nullity independent from the typical contents of this clause, i.e. provided that all the general conditions for validity as well as special conditions for validity foreseen in consumer protection legislation (bot special and general) are met.

Conclusion
At the time these lines are written (April 2018), the issue of legality of the clause on loan processing fee is a subject of principle consideration at the Supreme Court of Cessation. To the best of our knowledge, in late March 2018 the judges of the appellate courts have presented their views concerning this issue in front of the Supreme Court of Cessation, and the judges of the Supreme Court of Cessation are yet to take Živković M. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law izvedenom analizom, odredba ugovora o kreditu o obavezi korisnika kredita da banci naknadi troškove obrade kredita je, per se (dakle, mimo drugih razloga za nepunovažnost), po važećem pravu Republike Srbije punovažna i to bez obzira na to je li korisnik kredita potrošač ili nije, i bez obzira na to je li odredba predviđena opštim uslovima ili je individualno ugovorena. Ako bi Vrhovni kasacioni sud zauzeo suprotno stanovište u postupku koji je pred njim trenutno u toku, to bi, što se zainteresovanih strana tiče, imalo pozitivne posledice za sve korisnike kredita u poslednjih 10 godina koji su ovu naknadu platili, i koji bi je mogli tražiti nazad s kamatom, i negativne posledice za banke koje bi pretrpele znatan poslovni gubitak. Valja međutim imati na umu da bi takva odluka imala i niz negativnih posledica po opšti interes, kako pravnih tako i ekonomskih. On Legality of the Loan Processing Fee in the Serbian Law the position regarding this issue. Even though our position has been presented clearly and is well substantiated, this in no way means that the same position shall be taken by the supreme judicial instance in Serbia. Despite the author's opinion that, related to this issue, it would be extremely difficult to validly substantiate the opposite position, we cannot exclude the possibility that an oversight has been made in the analysis, and that the judges of the Supreme Court of Cessation may take the opposing position. Naturally, unlike the author's position which is in no way legally binding, the position of the Supreme Court of Cessation in resolving the disputed legal issue shall be, to the certain extent formally, but even more importantly, de facto mandatory for the lower courts, in that sense being incomparably more relevant. Bearing in mind the possibility that the Supreme Court of Cessation decides differently from the position the author took after the analysis presented in this paper, it might be appropriate to use the conclusion to warn about the consequences of that different position, both legal and non-legal, economic consequences, in order to make perfectly clear to the decisionmakers what their decision would practically mean.
From the legal point of view, the decision that the clause on loan processing fee is null and void would strike a serious blow to legal certainty in Serbia, and it would be contrary to the principle of freedom of contract, which is a fundamental principle upon which the very institution of contract and contract law are based. Having in mind the decade long practice of contracting the loan processing fee, as well as the previous case law which for decades took the position that such contracting is allowed and principally valid, the change of position in case law without any legislative change, that is the change of the position of courts based upon the same, unchanged regulations upon which the opposite position used to be based, would seriously undermine the legal certainty due to the retroactive effect of such change in case law. Namely, if the Serbian legislator would decide to explicitly forbid contracting the loan processing fee, such statutory provision could only have a pro future effect, and only quite exceptionally could have a retroactive effect. If, however, the courts would change their position in the application of the same (unchanged) legal framework, it would affect not only the contracts executed after such a change in case law, but also, retroactively, all contracts executed beforehand, where the limit could be the expiration of statute of limitation of 10 years (for the sake of comparison, this deadline in Germany is 3 years, so only loan contracts executed during the three years prior to the publication of the mentioned BGH decisions were affected; moreover, in Germany the doctrine on the ban on shifting the burden of costs by means of general terms and conditions existed in case law for a very long time, so it is incorrect to argue that it was a complete and abrupt turnover in case law). The retroactive effect of statutory provisions is allowed to the legislator only exceptionally exactly because of its inherent violation of the legal certainty, hence a proof of a significantly prevailing interest, which in concrete case justifies retroactivity, is required. Even though the courts do not have the same limitation, one should bear in mind that a turnover in case law, given its retroactive effect, significantly violates legal certainty. Bearing in mind that the commercial practice of contracting the loan processing fee has genuinely lasted for years, even decades, such violation of legal certainty would not leave the reputation of the Republic of Serbia as an investment destination intact, and could even serve as a cause for initiation of investment arbitration against Serbia. The breach of the freedom of contract and the pacta sunt servanda principle would be reflected in the extension of the scope of nullity of contractual terms, which would be a consequence of the court decision that the loan processing fee clause is invalid. Taking the previous analysis into account, it is clear that the reasoning of such court decision would have to provide for a new, until now not existing cause of nullity, in the sense of a new interpretation of some existing provisions of the Serbian laws. Irrespective of the author's opinion that such position is legally fallible in this concrete case, the conclusion of the courts on nullity of these clauses would also have to have a wider effect, and would thus incite numerous clients of the banks and other financially liquid legal entities to take them to court in an attempt to subsequently reduce their obligations or receive Literatura / References back payments made a long time ago. In other