Dutch bank ABN-AMRO tried to de-risk (one of?) the last surviving Bitcoin ATM provider in the country. A judge put a stop to that.
The basic rule is that terms in a contract can't be enforced if they lead to unacceptable outcomes, which the judge believes to be the case here. Note that banks are required to serve the interests of their clients (and the public IIUC), not just their own. Losing this bank account would have made it impossible for the company to safely/legally get rid of its cash within the country. This puts a high burden on the bank to be able to terminate the agreement.
The bank had two arguments for termination, both were dismissed, but the second one is the most interesting. The ATM company does not, and refuses to, monitor transactions for non-custodial wallets. The current EU AML law doesn't require that, neither does the (far more strict) Dutch implementation of it. The comparison was made to the fact that this bank does not follow cash that comes out of its own ATM either.
The judge also pointed out that AML law does not have the (stated??) goal of removing risky business from the financial rails.
(the bank could still appeal this, but so far so good)
https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:1081
provoost / Sjors Provoost
npub1s6…dwk4c
2024-03-01 20:43:57
Author Public Key
npub1s6z7hmmx2vud66f3utxd70qem8cwtggx0jgc7gh8pqwz2k8cltuqrdwk4cPublished at
2024-03-01 20:43:57Event JSON
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"kind": 1,
"tags": [
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"content": "Dutch bank ABN-AMRO tried to de-risk (one of?) the last surviving Bitcoin ATM provider in the country. A judge put a stop to that.\n\nThe basic rule is that terms in a contract can't be enforced if they lead to unacceptable outcomes, which the judge believes to be the case here. Note that banks are required to serve the interests of their clients (and the public IIUC), not just their own. Losing this bank account would have made it impossible for the company to safely/legally get rid of its cash within the country. This puts a high burden on the bank to be able to terminate the agreement.\n\nThe bank had two arguments for termination, both were dismissed, but the second one is the most interesting. The ATM company does not, and refuses to, monitor transactions for non-custodial wallets. The current EU AML law doesn't require that, neither does the (far more strict) Dutch implementation of it. The comparison was made to the fact that this bank does not follow cash that comes out of its own ATM either.\n\nThe judge also pointed out that AML law does not have the (stated??) goal of removing risky business from the financial rails.\n\n(the bank could still appeal this, but so far so good)\n\nhttps://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/details?id=ECLI:NL:RBAMS:2024:1081",
"sig": "3caa2dd32d919e2f67be6743ca322f01ab04776b388f56ee82e66b4588a295438369a4e902d2ba29666cd375eeb14c740d83dde6949b4babc375a2a2b8a597e3"
}