Brazilian Cryptocurrency Exchange Won A Court Battle
Brazilian cryptocurrency exchange Walltime, wins a court ruling against local bank Caixa Econômica Federal, requiring it to unfreeze its accounts with has over $200,000 worth of funds.
According to a local news outlet, although Walltime has won the preliminary ruling, the court is yet to give a final verdict but the court has however permitted the exchange access the funds on its account to continue serving clients for the time being.
Graziela Brandão, Walltime’s lawyer noted that the court’s decision was essential as Walltime have more than 800,000 reals ($212,000) in its accounts and could not process customer deposits because it was frozen. She noted:
“Given that the nature of Walltime’s activity requires an open bank account in as many institutions as possible to facilitate 24/7 negotiations, Walltime suffered a lot of damage in that period.”
Brandão explains that the exchange has incurred more than a million dollars in losses in the account at Caixa Econômica and only a “probable future indemnity action” will help it recover.
In her own words, Walltime lost several users due to its inability to properly process transactions with the bank, which resulted in losses in trading volume and as a result revenue as well.
Walltime’s case against Caixa Econômica was initially filed earlier in April this year, as it states its “bank account was blocked without any notice or justification” on March 22.
Brandão states that the bank’s decision breaks the guidelines created by Brazil’s central bank. According to the local news outlet, the bank should have made notice of why it was stopping its banking contract with the cryptocurrency exchange for it to properly abide by the central bank’s guidelines.
It is worth noting that this is not the first time for Walltime to have problems with banking services. The publication states that it lost similar cases against other banks that froze its accounts dues to a decision Brandão says were made because “the judge understood that there was a prior notice of the closure of the account,” regardless of it only being effective 15 days following the account’s closure.
