What Article 153¹⁰ actually covers
Article 624¹ of the Civil Code of Georgia requires a secured loan to be disbursed in the form of non-cash settlement. Article 153¹⁰ of the Code of Administrative Offences is the enforcement side of that requirement: it sets out what follows when a secured loan is handed over in cash instead of being transferred to an account. If you lent money against security and the funds moved in cash, or if the loan agreement itself provides for cash disbursement, the conduct falls within this article.
The scope is narrow, and that matters. Article 153¹⁰ says nothing about the interest rate, the term of the loan, the collateral, or the fairness of the bargain. Its only subject is the form in which the money was disbursed.
Who it applies to, and who is carved out
The first paragraph defines its subject partly by exclusion, and the exclusion is a substantial one. For that reason the first question in a case under this article is often not whether the rule was broken, but whether the article reaches you at all.
- Liability falls on the person who breached the non-cash disbursement requirement of Article 624¹ of the Civil Code of Georgia.
- The article expressly does not apply to entities subject to supervision by the National Bank of Georgia under the Organic Law of Georgia "On the National Bank of Georgia".
- In practice the provision is therefore aimed at lenders outside that supervisory perimeter.
The sanction: a warning first, then GEL 10,000
Article 153¹⁰ does not fine on the first occasion. It builds a staged sequence in which each step is reached only if the situation is left unchanged after the previous one.
- Paragraph 1 — breach of the Article 624¹ requirement results in a warning to the person.
- Paragraph 2 — failure to remove the ground of the offence within 30 calendar days of that warning results in a fine of GEL 10,000.
- Paragraph 3 — if the same ground still has not been removed 30 calendar days after the fine was imposed, the person is fined again. The article does not state a separate amount for that repeat fine.
Dates therefore carry as much weight as the substance. The warning is not only a sanction; it starts the clock. The 30 calendar days that follow it are the window in which the position can be corrected without a fine, and the same structure repeats once a fine has been imposed.
Read together, paragraphs 1 to 3 treat the problem as a state of affairs rather than a single event. The warning responds to the breach itself; the fine responds to the ground of the offence still existing 30 calendar days later; the repeat fine responds to it still existing 30 calendar days after that. The note to the article confirms that reading, because it defines the cure in terms of the contract rather than in terms of anything done with money that has already changed hands.
The practical consequence is that inaction is itself what escalates the case. Someone who receives a warning, disagrees with it, and leaves the agreement untouched while waiting for the dispute to be heard can meet the paragraph 2 fine before the disagreement is resolved. Whether to correct the contract first and argue afterwards, or to argue first, is a genuine decision — and it has a 30-day fuse attached to it.
What "removing the ground of the offence" means
This is not left open to argument. A note to the article states, for the purposes of paragraph 2, exactly what counts as removing the ground of the offence.
- Termination of the loan agreement concluded between the parties; or
- amendment of the part of the loan agreement that breaches the requirement of Article 624¹ of the Civil Code of Georgia.
Both routes are documentary acts, which means both leave documentary proof. A dated termination agreement, or a dated amendment to the loan contract, is the evidence that the correction was made and that it was made in time.
What you can do, and where a lawyer changes the outcome
If a warning has already been served, time and the accuracy of dates are the most valuable things you have. Representation usually concentrates on three questions.
- Whether you fall within the article's class of persons at all, or within the National Bank supervision carve-out.
- Whether the agreement genuinely breaches Article 624¹, or whether a clause has been read as providing for cash disbursement when it does not.
- Whether the ground was removed by one of the two methods the note specifies, and whether that is provable inside the 30-day window.
A decision imposing an administrative penalty can be contested. The applicable deadline and the body that hears the complaint depend on which authority decided your case. Article 153¹⁰ does not regulate that, so the route has to be read off the decision itself rather than assumed from a general rule.
What to bring
Before the first consultation, gather the documents that establish the dates and the exact wording of the agreement.
- The loan agreement with every annex and amendment.
- The document establishing the security.
- Proof of how the funds actually moved — a bank statement or a receipt.
- The warning, and evidence of when it was served on you.
- The decision imposing the fine, if one has already been issued.