Point of law: whether thin capitalisation rules in Art 269 of the Tax Code require that the comparability of conditions in a loan contract concluded by the taxpayer as a borrower should be determined exclusively by comparing them with the provisions of other loan contracts of the same taxpayer or, rather, the conditions existent in the entire credit market should be taken into account?

Alternative interpretations: 1) it is the contracts of the same taxpayer that must be compared with each other, so that thin capitalisation rules of Art 269 would apply when the interest rate in a particular contract diverges by more than 20% from an average rate in those contracts (the view of lower courts); 2) the conditions of loan contracts concluded by the taxpayer should be compared with general market conditions, because only this comparison enables one to determine whether such conditions were economically reasonable and justifiable, which is exactly the purpose of thin capitalisation rules of Art 269 (the view of the panel of judges which referred the case to the Presidium).

Ratio decidendi: the Presidium ruled that the second interpretation is legally correct.

Practical consequences: the Judgment says that prior court decisions in analogous cases if inconsistent with this interpretation may be reversed in the procedure and within the limits envisaged by Art 311 of the Commercial Procedure Code.