Moratorium interest in the broader framework of interest on compensation

Abstract

The interest-delay partnership poses problems and generates difficulties also because of the fact that we do not have sufficient and profound knowledge in order to understand it.
Paradoxically, we tend to forget that the moratorium interest regulated by art. 1088 of the Civil Code and by its satellites, namely art. 1089 and art. 1090 of the Civil Code, is based upon the debtors liability, and that it is also used for situations which exceed its natural incidence scope. Art. 1088 of the Civil Code applies, on one hand, to the delay in the performance of any money debt, regardless of its origin, and, on the other hand, whenever a money debt generates interest, irrespective of the characteristics of the debt or of the reasons why it generates interest.
We cannot fully understand an institution without knowing its history. The presentation of the origin and of the terminological evolution of the moratorium interest and of the interest on compensation will help us understand the exact meaning of these notions and of the relations between them.