Dexia and Intesa Sanpaolo Secure Win Against FiRA in Court of Appeal of L’Aquila

Cleary Gottlieb represented Dexia S.A. (Dexia) and Intesa Sanpaolo S.p.A. (Intesa Sanpaolo) in their win against FiRA S.p.A. (FiRA), an in-house company of the Abruzzo region, before the Court of Appeal of L’Aquila in relation to a €150 million loan agreement.

In a judgment published on June 9, 2025, the Court of Appeal of L’Aquila fully rejected FiRA’s appeal against a judgment by the lower Court of L’Aquila that had already established the validity of the early termination clause indexed to Euribor contained in the loan agreement.

The Court of Appeal of L’Aquila upheld the judgment of the lower court, dismissing FiRA’s arguments that the early termination clause due to the banks in the event of an early repayment of the loan was unlawful or, in any case, null and void for being indetermined, uneconomic, or legally unmeritorious.

With thoughtful reasoning, the Court of Appeal of L’Aquila ruled out any doubt as to the “full validity and determinacy of the clause in question,” recalling another precedent of the Court of Appeal of Rome obtained by Cleary in favor of Dexia and Intesa Sanpaolo against an in-house company of the Municipality of Livorno (judgment No. 6514/2022).

The judgment is part of a broader litigation stream in which numerous borrowers, both private and public, have raised various objections against the clauses of the financing agreements also due to the references contained therein to external indexes such as Euribor. This precedent validates the full legitimacy of similar clauses, confirming the legitimacy of recourse to external indexes in determining the economic benefits provided for in inter partes financing agreements.