Italian banking giant UniCredit has been asked to pay a fine of about $144 million for allegedly closing accounts belonging to a cryptocurrency mining company.
UniCredit in Hot Water
A district court in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, has ruled that UniCredit’s branch office in the country will pay a fine of €131 million ($144 million) in damages following a lawsuit filed by a subsidiary of the crypto mining company Bitminer Factory. The local news outlet La Repubblica first reported the story.
Bitminer Factory’s subsidiary accused UniCredit of wrongfully closing its current accounts held in the bank’s local branch in Banja Luka. According to the crypto mining firm, the closure “prevented the Initial Coin Offering (ICO) associated with startup projects in the cryptocurrency mining sector using renewable energy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”
The firm set up mining operations in Bosnia and Herzegovina due to the country’s low energy tariff and opened bank accounts with UniCredit. While the bank previously allowed them to withdraw profits from the sale of mined crypto to their accounts, the UniCredit subsidiary stopped, stating that it could not service cryptocurrency businesses and suppliers.
However, the court stated that the bank could not present evidence of any written rules which prevented the financial institution from forming a business relationship with crypto-based firms.
Meanwhile, UniCredit seems dissatisfied with the ruling and has reportedly appealed the judgment. According to the bank, the sentence “is not definitive, binding, nor enforceable,” adding:
“Possible liability will be determined only by the definitive outcome of all available procedural remedies and not before the filing of a definitive and binding sentence by the appeals court.”
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