A year ago, Sberbank blocked the accounts of a resident of Revda, who was involved in the sale of bitcoins, for “suspicious” transactions. The Sverdlovsk Regional Court ordered the bank to unblock the accounts.
Pavel R., a resident of the city of Revda, Sverdlovsk region, was selling bitcoins using P2P platforms from May to August 2020. As part of combating money laundering, Sberbank decided to block the accounts of its client. And he refused to unfreeze the accounts even after the Revdinets provided all the necessary documents about the legality of the transactions. After that, Pavel filed a pre-trial claim with Sberbank, and then filed a lawsuit.
The court of first instance (Revda City Court) supported the actions of the bank. However, Pavel did not stop and appealed to the Sverdlovsk Regional Court, which
admitted the client was right… At the same time, the judicial board for civil cases agreed that Sberbank had grounds for blocking accounts. However, after the client provided explanations and the necessary documents, the bank had to remove the lock and restore access to remote banking services.
The court stressed that although trading in cryptocurrencies is not regulated in Russia, there are no bans on this activity.
But Pavel did not succeed in obtaining compensation for moral harm – the court found that the client had used bank accounts for other purposes than those protected by the law “On Protection of Consumer Rights”. Therefore, the court ordered the bank to unblock Pavel R.’s accounts, restore access to RBS and compensate legal costs in the amount of 5 thousand rubles.
At the beginning of June, the court considered the first case in Russia on the misappropriation of bitcoins transferred to trust, at the suit of Petrov and Bashilov.
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