UniCredit Bank was fined €131 million (around $143.84 million) for closing accounts belonging to Bitminer Factory. Italian bank’s branch office in Banja Luka, Bosnia, and Herzegovina, was called before a local court. The bank was accused of improperly closing accounts belonging to the company. Bitminer Factory claims to be Italy’s “first and largest mining farm”.
UniCredit Bank was fined to pay €131 million in punishment to the impacted company
UniCredit Bank was fined to pay €131 million (about $143.84 million) punishment to the impacted company in the first phase of a two-year dispute over shutting a current account belonging to a cryptocurrency mining farm.
According to La Repubblica on March 27, the popular Italian bank’s branch office in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, was summoned to the local court in a case filed by the country’s subsidiary of the Italian crypto mining firm Bitminer Factory.
The bank was accused in the case of improperly closing accounts belonging to the company, which claims to be Italy’s “first and largest mining farm.” The company’s claim of losses was accepted by the court, and it was given €131 million.
The impacted accounts were opened with UniCredit Bank Banja Luka and Bitminer Factory d.o.o Gradiska was founded to cut electricity costs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. After approving the first of the mining company’s several requests for bitcoin withdrawals, the bank began to reject them, citing an “inability to do business with digital currency suppliers and exchange platforms.”
The bank had failed to show that it had any written policies barring the formation of business connections with bitcoin traders, according to the court.
A large amount of electricity is required to mine Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC), and Bosnia and Herzegovina has lower electricity costs.
In an attempt to save money, miners worldwide have stolen hundreds of millions of dollars worth of electricity in order to build solar-powered mining rigs.
“Possible liability will be determined only by the definitive outcome of all available procedural procedures, not before the appeals court files a definite and binding sentence,” UniCredit said. According to local media, the bank has already filed an appeal against the court’s decision, claiming that it is “not definite, binding, or enforceable.”
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