Court orders Sberbank to unblock Bitcoin seller’s accounts

The Sverdlovsk Regional Court ordered Sberbank to unblock the Revda resident’s cards, who trades cryptocurrency on exchanges.

As reported by the press service, from May to August 2020, regular transfers from individuals arrived on the client’s Sberbank accounts. The financial institution considered the operations suspicious and blocked the resident of Revda’s cards to prevent possible money laundering of funds obtained by criminal means. It also shut down remote banking access.

Sberbank requested documents confirming the source of funds and “explaining the purpose of the transactions”.

The bank customer provided evidence indicating that he sold Bitcoin on cryptocurrency exchanges; however, his accounts were not unblocked.

The owner of the cryptocurrency filed a lawsuit in Revda City Court demanding the blocking be lifted, remote banking restored and compensation for moral damages. The court did not satisfy the claim.

Later the Revda resident appealed to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court.

The Civil Affairs Judicial Board concluded that the bank had grounds to block the plaintiff’s cards and restrict remote banking, but confirmed that after the source of funds had been explained Sberbank should have overturned the decision.

“Although at the time the dispute arose, the activity of buying and selling cryptocurrency had not yet received regulatory treatment, it is not prohibited by Russian law,” the press service noted.

The Sverdlovsk Regional Court overturned the first-instance decision, ordering the plaintiff’s cards unblocked and access to remote banking restored. On damages, the court again refused, finding that the Consumer Protection Act does not apply to this situation.

The lawyer and Moscow Digital School expert Efim Kazantsev, in a ForkLog commentary, noted that cryptocurrency trading on exchanges in Russia is not prohibited; however banks have long considered many payments to an individual’s card “without any clear purpose” to be suspicious transactions.

According to him, after the legitimacy of the transactions is established, the bank should unblock the account, but in practice financial institutions often do not do this.

“In situations of unclear regulation of cryptocurrency trading, banks do not want to assume responsibility and prefer to wait for a court decision that will determine the legality of the operations performed by the client and the necessity of unblocking the account,” he added.

Earlier in June, a court in Perm region restricted access to resources advertising the sale of Bitcoin for fiat currency.

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