Altcoin News: Tel Aviv Court Forbade the Bank to Close the Account of the Mining Company Israminers

March 18, 2019, by Marko Vidrih on ALTCOIN MAGAZINE

The Israel court again ruled against the local bank, which tried to close the account of the cryptocurrency company without giving any reasons.

This time, the Tel Aviv court ruled that the bank could not refuse to service the account of the company engaged in mining cryptocurrency. The court banned the sixth largest Israeli bank Union Bank of Israel to close the account of the local cryptocurrency company Israminers Ltd.

Judge Limor Bibi ruled that the bank’s policy regarding the ban on opening accounts for any client working with digital currencies has no legal basis. However, the bank may still reject company requests for crediting fiat currencies if they come from anonymous exchanges to operate in accordance with the requirements of the AML and KYC rules. The judge ruled:

“I believe that the sweeping policy, which does not distinguish between different types of activity, scope of activity and different types of customers — in the field of digital currencies — is unreasonable.”

At the same time, the judge finds it reasonable for the bank’s argument that, in some cases, the “money trail” is difficult to determine, and this creates a risk of money laundering. As a result, the judge considered the refusal of the bank to provide services in relation to the receipt of money deposited into the account, reasonable.

It is not the first time when Israeli banks have been refused by the court to block the accounts of cryptocurrency companies without good reason. For example, in May 2018, the same judge made Bank Hapoalim, the largest bank in Israel, accept a transfer for the sale of Bitcoins to a client who had documents tracking the transaction from beginning to end. In February 2018, the Supreme Court of Israel also issued a decision prohibiting the bank to refuse to service the Bits of Gold cryptocurrency exchange.

A similar practice is observed in Brazil. Recently, the Mercado Bitcoin Exchange won another case closing a bank account.

Author: Marko Vidrih