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Eurobank Board Calls Extraordinary Meeting to Approve Strategic Merger

Announcement and Meeting Details

Eurobank’s board of directors has summoned an extraordinary general meeting for December 3, 2025, where shareholders will be asked to approve a strategic merger with Eurobank Holdings S.A. The proposed merger will see Eurobank S.A. absorb Eurobank Holdings S.A., a move designed to foster operational efficiency and cost reduction.

Hybrid Meeting Format and Quorum Provisions

The meeting will be conducted in a hybrid format, offering shareholders the option to participate either in person at the Conference Centre in Nea Ionia or remotely via teleconference. Should the quorum not be met on the initial date, a subsequent meeting is scheduled for December 11, 2025, also utilizing the hybrid model.

Strategic Rationale for the Merger

The merger is part of a strategic reverse hive-down aimed at reducing administrative and accounting costs while simplifying the legal structure. This maneuver is expected to streamline supervisory compliance, particularly following the resolution of legacy non-performing loan issues, thereby strengthening the bank’s market positioning for the future.

Share Buyback Programme Adjustments

In light of the proposed merger, Eurobank Holdings has temporarily suspended its share buyback programme. Notably, between October 20 and October 21, 2025, the bank repurchased 879,000 of its shares on the Athens Stock Exchange at an average price of €3.4156 per share, totaling €3,002,347.79. As of October 21, 2025, Eurobank Holdings held 54,228,394 of its own shares, representing 1.4749% of its paid-up share capital.

Forward-Looking Financial Strategy

The share buyback programme is set to resume under Eurobank S.A. following the completion of the merger and the subsequent listing of the merged entity’s shares on the Athens Stock Exchange, anticipated in mid-December 2025. The programme’s remaining authorised amount of €122,919,881.27 will be utilised, with an endpoint of April 29, 2026. All treasury shares held by Eurobank Holdings will be cancelled upon merger completion, subject to the approval of the European Central Bank.

Legal Framework and Execution

The merger process is governed by specific provisions under Articles 6–21, 30–34, and 140 of Law 4601/2019, Article 16 of Law 2515/1997, and relevant provisions of Law 4548/2018. Authorized representatives have been appointed to sign the necessary documents before a notary, ensuring that all procedural steps are adhered to with precision.

Copyright Law Struggles To Keep Up With AI Training

Courts Are Still Applying Old Copyright Rules To AI

AI companies train models on enormous amounts of published material, including books, articles and academic research. Whether using that content without authors’ permission violates copyright law remains unresolved.

Much of the debate centres on fair use, which allows copyrighted material to be used without permission in certain circumstances. Courts consider factors such as the purpose of the use, how much material was involved and its impact on the original market.

Anthropic Case Sets An Important Precedent

A major case involving Anthropic and a group of authors provided one of the clearest rulings so far. Judge William Alsup found that using copyrighted books to train AI models was lawful, comparing the process to people reading and studying literature before creating something new.

Anthropic was nevertheless ordered to pay $1.5 billion in a settlement. The penalty concerned books the company had obtained from illegal online libraries rather than the AI training itself.

For AI companies, that distinction could prove significant because it separates studying copyrighted material from directly copying it.

Competition Could Be The Key Issue

A case involving Thomson Reuters and Ross Intelligence offers a different perspective. A court ruled that Ross could not claim fair use after using Reuters’ copyrighted material to develop a competing AI-powered legal research platform.

The decision suggests courts may be less willing to consider AI training fair use when copyrighted content is used to build a product that directly competes with the original.

For authors, an unresolved question is whether AI-generated content should be considered competition for the works used to train these models.

The Law Has Yet To Catch Up

US copyright law predates generative AI by decades, leaving courts to apply old principles to new technology. Questions also remain over copyright protection for AI-generated works. In Thaler v. Perlmutter, a court ruled that material created entirely by AI cannot receive copyright protection.

Major AI companies remain involved in copyright litigation, and different courts could reach different conclusions. For now, there is no universal rule: the legality of AI training will depend on the circumstances of each case and how courts ultimately interpret copyright and fair use.

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