Banco Santander (SAN) won an appeal against a previous ruling that ordered the payment of 677 million British pounds ($911.9 million) to Axa for past payment protection insurance mis-selling, the UK Court of Appeal said Tuesday.

Instead, the insurer must meet the bill for decades-old mis-selling, according to the ruling.

The conflict stems from policies covering retailer-branded credit cards sold by GE Capital, parts of which later became part of both Santander and Axa following a series of deals.

Judges determined that a 2000 agency contract applied exclusively to policy sales after the agreement took effect, eliminating roughly 85% of the total financial award relating to earlier transactions,

The verdict frees Santander from reimbursing AXA for regulatory compensation payments from store credit card products sold before December 2000, the court said.

Santander and AXA didn't immediately respond to MT Newswires' requests for comment.