A debtor who borrows from seven separate creditors and cannot repay them has not necessarily acted with eventual intent. That is the operational consequence of Areios Pagos 16/2026 for creditors raising the bad-faith defence under Law 3869/2010. A court cannot infer that a debtor foresaw and accepted payment inability from the arithmetic of over-borrowing alone: it must identify the specific mental state — and articulate it, precisely, in its reasoning.
Areios Pagos Decision 16/2026, Δ' Πολιτικό Τμήμα, heard on 4 April 2025, quashed Decision 1/2020 of the Monomeles Protodikeio Dramas sitting as appellate court in non-contentious jurisdiction and remitted the case to a different judge. The appeal court had denied debt restructuring relief to the debtor on the ground that he had fallen into insolvency with eventual intent (ενδεχόμενος δόλος). The Areios Pagos held that the reasoning failed, granting the cassation on two independent grounds.
The Law 3869/2010 Regime
Article 1(1) of Law 3869/2010, as substituted by Article 1(1) of ΥΠΟΠΑΡ. Α.4 of Article 2 of Law 4336/2015 (ΦΕΚ Α' 94/14-8-2015), grants natural persons without bankruptcy capacity under Article 2 of Law 3588/2007 the right to apply to court for debt restructuring when they have fallen into a permanent and general inability to pay their overdue monetary debts "without intent" (χωρίς δόλο). That phrase is the gateway: a debtor who reached insolvency through deliberate or reckless conduct is excluded from the statutory relief. The amended version applies to petitions filed after the Law 4336/2015 entry into force, which governed this case.
Proceedings run under the non-contentious jurisdiction procedure by virtue of Article 3 of Law 3869/2010, with no costs awarded under Article 8(6) of Law 3869/2010. This is not an adversarial proceeding in the ordinary sense: the debtor petitions, creditors appear as respondents, and the court weighs demonstrated repayment capacity against the legitimate expectations of lenders.
The petitioner had accumulated debts to a concentrated group of creditors: Eurobank (as successor to the former Neo Tachydromiko Tamievtirio), Alpha Bank (including as quasi-universal successor to Emporiki and special successor to Citibank International), Piraeus Bank (as successor to Cyprus Popular Bank / Marfin Popular Bank and universal successor to Geniki Trapeza), National Bank of Greece, the Cooperative Bank of Drama, the London-based special purpose vehicle "... Finance No. 1 PLC" as special successor to the Deposits and Loans Fund, and the Independent Authority for Public Revenue (AADE) acting as representative of the Greek State. The breadth of that creditor list is itself the narrative the creditors attempted to construct as bad faith — and the analytical weakness in that narrative is precisely what the court identified.
What "Eventual Intent" Actually Requires
Eventual intent in the Law 3869/2010 context is not simply careless borrowing. The Areios Pagos set out the test: the debtor must have contracted with a sufficient number of credit institutions for a large number of banking products; foreseen as a contingent outcome — not a certainty, but a realistic possibility — that over-indebtedness relative to existing or reasonably anticipated future economic capacity would lead to payment inability; and then accepted that outcome rather than trusting it would be avoided.
This formulation applies Article 330 of the Civil Code (AK) on fault in obligation alongside Article 27(1) of the Penal Code (PC), which defines conditional intent. Their transplantation into the insolvency relief context is well-established in Areios Pagos case law, with the same two-limb structure appearing consistently across the line of decisions cited in 16/2026.
The critical point is what the test does not require. The creditor's plea does not need to identify individual loan contracts by reference number or to specify the terms of each banking product. But it does need to go beyond the bare mathematics: a table showing aggregate debt exceeding income is not sufficient. The court must make a finding about foresight and acceptance of the specific risk of insolvency — and that finding must appear in the reasoning.
Indefinite Legal Concept: Why Cassation Review Applies
The Areios Pagos confirmed that "intent" (δόλος) in this provision is an indefinite legal concept (αόριστη νομική έννοια). That characterisation carries a significant procedural consequence: whether the facts found by the lower court actually satisfy the legal concept of intent is a question of law, reviewable in full cassation. The merits court cannot make a discretionary determination that the Areios Pagos is bound to accept without review.
AP 263/2025, AP 596/2024, AP 688/2024, AP 1508/2022 had already confirmed this principle. For Law 3869/2010 proceedings, conducted under the Article 560 ΚΠολΔ cassation track rather than the standard Article 559 track, the same rule applies: errors in applying an indefinite legal concept can be challenged under Article 560(1) ΚΠολΔ (erroneous application of law) and Article 560(6) ΚΠολΔ (insufficient reasoning), as confirmed in AP 82/2025, AP 1339/2024, AP 1544/2023, AP 1508/2022.
In this case, the appeal court made factual findings that could logically support an eventual-intent conclusion: the debtor's wife did not work for health reasons that did not otherwise limit her activities; the couple chose to reduce family income; the debtor continued to borrow despite known income insufficiency; and a lump-sum severance payment of €35,000 was used to renovate the primary residence rather than service debt. Those findings, however, were not assembled into the required reasoning structure. The court did not articulate how those facts satisfied both limbs of the test — foresight of insolvency as a realistic probability, and acceptance of that outcome. The Areios Pagos granted the cassation on the second limb of the first ground (erroneous application of Article 1(1) of Law 3869/2010 under Article 560(1) ΚΠολΔ) and the third ground (insufficient reasoning under Article 560(6) ΚΠολΔ).
The Intrum Hellas Intervention: A Warning for NPL Servicers
Intrum Hellas ΑΕΔΑΔΠ (formerly Alternative Financial Solutions), acting as servicer for Phoenix SNF Designated Activity Company, had filed an independent additional intervention (αυτοτελής πρόσθετη παρέμβαση) in support of Piraeus Bank. The Areios Pagos rejected it as inadmissible on two independent grounds.
First, the intervention pleading (filed under registration number 45/26-8-2022 in the cassation proceedings) was not served on either the cassation applicant or the respondents within the required period before the hearing. Second, Intrum Hellas was not represented by counsel at the original hearing and filed no written declaration under Article 242(2) ΚΠολΔ — and remained unrepresented at the resumed hearing on 4 April 2025.
The resumed hearing is the key point. A hearing resumed under Article 307 ΚΠολΔ is a continuation of the original, not a fresh procedural occasion. A party who failed to appear at the original hearing cannot use the resumed hearing as a second entry point. Both failures applied simultaneously to Intrum Hellas, and either one was independently sufficient. The lesson for NPL servicers is procedurally direct: an intervention that is not timely served on all parties and not backed by active representation at every hearing is nullified entirely. Servicers holding mandates to manage NPL portfolios in Greek proceedings must track hearing dates, serve intervention pleadings on all parties within the statutory period, and maintain representation continuously through adjourned and resumed sittings.
Cross-Border Practitioner Note
Law 3869/2010 is a domestic Greek statute, not a harmonised EU framework. There is no EU directive governing natural person insolvency that requires Member States to adopt a uniform good-faith gateway: the 2019 Restructuring Directive (Directive 2019/1023/EU) harmonises business restructuring and second-chance discharge for entrepreneurs, not all individual debtors. The eventual-intent holding in Areios Pagos 16/2026 creates no precedent outside Greece and no obligation on other Member States to adopt the same standard.
Practitioners advising clients with multi-jurisdiction exposure — a borrower who holds assets in both Cyprus and Greece, or an NPL fund with portfolios spanning multiple Member States — must track each national regime independently. In Cyprus, natural person insolvency falls under the Bankruptcy Law (Cap. 5) and the 2015 Insolvency of Natural Persons legislation; the good-faith analysis differs in structure and application from the Greek δόλος threshold. In Austria, the personal discharge mechanism under the Insolvenzordnung applies its own conduct-based exclusion framework. Comparing the Greek holding to those systems requires jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction analysis rather than any assumed convergence.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What must a creditor's plea of eventual intent specifically allege in Law 3869/2010 proceedings?
A: Under Article 1(1) of Law 3869/2010, as restated in Areios Pagos 16/2026, the plea must allege that the debtor contracted with a sufficient number of credit institutions for numerous banking products, foresaw as a contingent outcome that over-borrowing relative to their economic capacity would lead to payment inability, and accepted that outcome. It is not necessary to enumerate each loan agreement individually. The plea does need to go beyond the bare fact of aggregate indebtedness and provide factual content from which both mental-state elements — foresight and acceptance — can be assessed.
Q: Why can the Areios Pagos review whether the lower court correctly applied "eventual intent"?
A: Because "intent" (δόλος) in Article 1(1) of Law 3869/2010 is an indefinite legal concept (αόριστη νομική έννοια), and the application of an indefinite legal concept to facts is a question of law, not a discretionary factual determination. The merits court's conclusion that a debtor did or did not act with eventual intent can therefore be reviewed in full by the Areios Pagos under Article 560(1) and (6) ΚΠολΔ. Prior decisions confirming the principle include AP 263/2025, AP 596/2024, AP 688/2024, and AP 1508/2022.
Q: What happens if an NPL servicer's intervention pleading is not served on all parties and the servicer does not appear at the hearing?
A: The intervention is treated as having never been filed and is rejected as inadmissible. In Areios Pagos 16/2026, Intrum Hellas's independent additional intervention failed on two independent grounds: the pleading was not served on the other parties within the required period, and Intrum was not represented by counsel and filed no written declaration under Article 242(2) ΚΠολΔ at either the original hearing or the resumed hearing under Article 307 ΚΠολΔ. Absence at the resumed hearing cannot be remedied: the resumed hearing is a continuation of the original, not a fresh procedural occasion.
Q: Does the eventual-intent standard from Areios Pagos 16/2026 apply in Cyprus or Austria?
A: No. Law 3869/2010 is a domestic Greek statute. Its eventual-intent standard creates no precedent and no legal obligation in any other jurisdiction. The 2019 Restructuring Directive does not harmonise natural person insolvency for non-entrepreneur individuals. Practitioners advising clients with assets or liabilities in multiple jurisdictions must analyse the good-faith or conduct-based exclusion rules of each national regime separately.
The full text of Areios Pagos 16/2026, the provisions of Law 3869/2010 and Law 4336/2015, the Greek Code of Civil Procedure, and the line of prior Areios Pagos decisions cited in the judgment are available on omnilaw.ai. Primary sources, not summaries. Every answer carries its citation.
