UniCredit Bank Faces €131 Million Fine Over Wrongfully Closed Crypto Miner’s Account

In the first round of a two-year controversy over closing a current account belonging to a cryptocurrency mining farm, UniCredit Bank is forced to pay a €131 million (around $143.84 million) fine to the affected company.

The popular Italian bank’s branch office in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, had been called before the local court in a lawsuit brought up by the country’s subsidiary of the Italian crypto mining company Bitminer Factory, as reported by La Repubblica on March 27.

In the lawsuit, the bank stood accused of the wrongful closure of accounts belonging to the company which describes itself as the “first and largest mining farm” in Italy. The court accepted the company’s argument that it had suffered losses and awarded it €131 million in damages.

The company asserted that the closure of its accounts had “hindered its initial coin offering (ICO) in relation to a startup project in the cryptocurrency mining sector with renewable energy in Bosnia and Herzegovina.”

UniCredit’s unclear relationship with cryptocurrencies

Bitminer Factory d.o.o Gradiska was launched in Bosnia and Herzegovina due to lower electricity costs in the country, while the affected accounts were opened with UniCredit Bank Banja Luka.

After accepting the first instance of the multiple requests made by the mining company to withdraw the mined cryptocurrency, the bank started rejecting them on account of “not being able to do business with digital currency suppliers and exchange platforms.”

However, the court ruled that the bank had in no way proven it had any written rules prohibiting the formation of business relationships with clients dealing with cryptocurrencies.

The bank has already filed an appeal against the court’s judgment, alleging that it is “not definite, binding, or enforceable,” according to local media.

“Possible culpability will be decided only by the definitive outcome of all available procedural procedures, not before the filing of a definitive and binding sentence by the appeals court,” UniCredit stated.

The farm’s decision to set up shop in Bosnia and Herzegovina was inspired by the large amounts of electricity required to mine Proof-of-Work (PoW) cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin (BTC) and the country’s reduced electricity costs.

Miners all around the world have been scrambling to save costs, resorting to everything from stealing hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of electricity to developing solar-powered mining rigs.

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