Athens, 5 August 2019

ANNOUNCEMENT

Further to its announcements dated 10/06/2019 and 04/07/2019, National Bank of Greece announces that, by virtue of decision No. 184/2019 of the Suspension Commission of the Council of State on the petition for suspension in the LEPETE case, which was engrossed and communicated to us today, the said petition was dismissed for purely formal/procedural reasons, mainly because it was deemed that the said petition for suspension essentially requested the suspension of provisions of typical law, which is considered not allowed under the procedural rules regarding petitions for suspension before the Council of State. This decision does not prejudice the outcome of the pending main petition for cancellation, scheduled to be heard before the Council of State on 02/12/2019.

Furthermore, as per its rationale, the provisions of article 24 of Law 4618/19 are of a provisional nature, until the issuance of judgements by the civil courts; meaning that the final resolution of the case is in essence passed on to the civil courts, where a final judgement in favour of NBG is highly likely in light of existing jurisprudence. In addition, it is therein stated that there is no question of damage to NBG, since the legislator does not impose the burden of covering deficits on the Bank but on ETEAEP.

Moreover, the said rationale indicates that the Council of State considers that for the years 2024 and thereafter there is no obligation of NBG, under the contested judicial actions or the arrangements under par. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 of article 24 of Law 4618/2019, to cover the pension expenses for the pensioners of LEPETE and ELEP PP ETHNAK or to cover the deficits of ETEAP associated with the retirement of insured employees and pensioners of the said pension accounts.

Accordingly, as per said decision, the Council of State considers, on the one hand, that any damage incurred by the Bank is not final but depends on the final judgement of the civil courts, and, on the other hand, that the Bank is not under obligation to cover the deficits nor to pay the pension expenses for the pensioners of the respective pension accounts.