A recent Supreme Court ruling (no. 4427/2024) has recognized full lawfulness to the work of agencies that take over claims for compensation and reimbursement for delayed or canceled flights. The judges held that the air delay compensation claim can also be assigned to a party not registered in the special Register kept by the Bank of Italy, given that such assignment does not constitute the granting of a loan.
A flight has a significant delay, and the passengers transfer their right to compensation for flight delays to a third-party company, the assignee.
The case in question arises from an appeal brought by the assignee company requesting that the airline company be ordered to pay the sum of 500.00 euros, by way of monetary compensation pursuant to art. 7 EC Reg. 261/2004, for the delay of more than three hours of a direct flight from Ibiza to Milan.
The airline refused to pay, arguing, for what is relevant here, that the assignment of credit was null and void because the plaintiff was not registered as a financial intermediary under Article 106 of Legislative Decree 385/1993 (the so-called Consolidated Banking Act).
The assignee appealed against the Court’s decision, which ruled in favor of the airline company. In the second instance, the Court of Busto Arsizio overturned the first instance decision and ordered the airline to pay the sums claimed.
Having lost in second instance, the airline appealed to the Court of Cassation on four grounds. In what is more relevant here, the appellant challenged the judgment as the Court of First Instance had rejected the plea of nullity of the contract of assignment of the claim concluded between the assignee company and the two beneficiaries of the indemnity. More specifically, the airline complained that the Court should have classified the assignment of the credit as a purchase for consideration of credits subject to the regulations set forth in Article 106 of legislative decree 385/1993 and Article 2, paragraph 1 of Ministerial Decree No. 53 of April 2, 2015, which, as mentioned above, requires, the registration of the assignee for consideration in the special Register kept by the Bank of Italy.
The Supreme Court found this argument to be unfounded, specifying how in order to have financing activity (which gives rise to the obligation to enroll with the Register) “it is not sufficient to have an assignment of credit to a party who operates towards third parties in a professional manner, but it is necessary that such assignment integrates the granting of financing, i.e. that it involves the provision of money or other utility.”
Indeed, the Supreme Court concluded from the content of the contract at issue that the transaction in question did not have a financing purpose, since “the giving of money by the assignee to the assignor is only eventual” (contingent on the successful collection of the assigned debt) and, in any case, even where the assigned debtor actually performs “it is always subsequent to the successful enforcement of the assigned debt“. In other words, the Supreme Court outlined a hypothesis in which, although there is an assignment of credit, this assignment does not fall under the reservation of assets provided for in Article 106 of Legislative Decree 385/1993.
Therefore, the appeal, for the reasons outlined so far and for the additional reasons not expressly referred to, was rejected and the assignment of the claim for flight delay compensation was held valid.
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