2023-12-07 19:31:13
Since the end of 2021, the Frankfurt Regional Court has been receiving an increasing number of urgent applications from bank customers who suddenly can no longer access their account: they can no longer withdraw cash, the EC card does not work and rent, insurance contributions or maintenance payments are not debited. Customers receive no information about the reason from the bank – which is always the same one in the proceedings, but whose name the court does not mention – and the institution avoids it. So, as the court reports on the cases before it, the customers go to the lawyer, who applies for an injunction to unlock the account.
It later emerged that the background to the blocking was a suspicion of money laundering reported by the bank to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU). The Money Laundering Act obliges banks to report to the FIU in such cases, then no more transactions are permitted. The threshold is low; there is no need for initial suspicion, such as when starting a criminal investigation. According to the court’s observations in the present urgent proceedings, the suspicion is usually based on cash deposits of 10,000 euros.
Banks are not allowed to inform customers
This number could be related to a request from Bafin in August 2021 to banks to request proof of origin from customers for cash deposits of this amount. According to the Money Laundering Act, banks are prohibited from informing customers about suspicious activity reports. According to the regional court, it becomes problematic if the account is not unblocked after three working days, as the law actually requires, unless the FIU orders further blocking.
In practice, as the regional court found, the bank often extends the deadline because otherwise it would regard debits or withdrawals of the potentially incriminated money as new suspicion. This extends the suspension in the cases before the court to up to three weeks, and in one case even four weeks. But the law also prohibits the court from informing the applicant about the reason for the blocking in an expedited procedure – a contradiction to the right to be heard enshrined in the Basic Law. The civil chambers, which have now dealt with around 40 proceedings, often make do with inquiries to the FIU.
Melanie Mühl Published/Updated: Recommendations: 48 Patrick Bahners and Stephan Klenner Published/Updated: Recommendations: 1 Ewald Hetrodt Published/Updated: Recommendations: 5
During the course of the procedure, the legal dispute usually resolves itself because the FIU informs the bank that it can unblock the account. But the customers are left with the legal costs: according to the law, the person who submits the suspicious transaction report cannot be held responsible – unless the report is intentionally false. In a case handled by the Frankfurt judges, a man sold two motorcycles and paid a total of 40,000 euros in five tranches. When the bank asked him to explain the origin of the money, he threw in the documents, but the account was blocked without further response. After two weeks it was released again. The legal dispute is now over – but the man remains responsible for the court costs of 1,750 euros.
#bank #customers #court #blocked #accounts