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Troubles with ABLV Bank in Latvia: help of a lawyer

20 February 2018
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You have a bank account in ABLV Bank in Latvia and you worry about the last news regarding the confidence of its position on the Latvian market? We can guide you through the main aspects of the situation that occurred with regards to the 3rd biggest Latvian banks by assets.

 

Brief overview of the situation that happened

 

Recently the US Treasury Department has adopted a decision to prohibit Latvian ABLV bank to use its correspondence accounts opened within American financial institutions. This decision literally blocks the possibility of the Latvian bank to provide operations in US dollars. Such a decision was adopted as a result of the investigation conducted by the US authorities regarding the violations of the sanctions regime on North Korea. In addition to that, the representatives of the bank were accused in corruptive ties with Russian and Ukrainian business acting as a hub for post-Soviet countries’ money flow to European and the US markets and financial institutions.

This news has shaken the whole Latvian bank sector and has led to the huge outflow of assets from ABLV Bank in Latvia equaling to more than 600 million euros. Many creditors of the bank launched a “rush” from the bank.

As a measure of prevention of further deterioration of the situation, European Central Bank has instructed Latvian Financial and Capital Market Commission to “freeze” all payment operations conducted by ABLV. The decision was implemented on Monday, 19th of February and now clients of the bank are not able to make payments through their debit and credit cards as well as conduct any bank transfers.

All this turbulence in the banking sector has led to the head of the Bank of Latvia Ilmars Rimsevics, who is also an ECB representative of Latvia, being detained as a result of corruption accusations.

In addition, ABLV Bank in Latvia wanted to receive 480 million EUR as a loan in exchange for security pledge, but Bank of Latvia gave only 97 million EUR.

However, it is worth mentioning that the official ABLV Bank in Latvia representatives denied all the accusations in various acts of corruption and violation of sanctions on North Korea and now will have 6 months to submit their detailed view of a situation.

In the light of all the recent bad news and accusations before the biggest Latvian privately held bank the whole national bank system has suffered the decrease of credibility from foreign clients and creditors. Notwithstanding all the hype around this situation, it is better to maintain patience till the investigation conducted by the Bank of Latvia, ECB and the US Treasury Department in this regard will be finished and all the dust will be settled. Only at that point it will be possible to draw some grounded conclusions.

 

In such regard, the value of a professional legal assistance is extremely high. Our team of qualified lawyers can always help and consult you on all the relevant legal matters that can arise while opening a bank account, conducting bank transfer operations and using various other bank services, please contact our English speaking lawyers at info@gencs.eu.

 

T: +371 67 240 090

F: +371 67 240 091

 

www.lavvocato.eu

www.attorneys-at-law.eu

www.baltic-lawfirm.eu

 

 

For questions, please, contact Valters Gencs, attorney at law at info@gencs.eu


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The material contained here is not to be construed as legal advice or opinion.

© Gencs Valters Law Firm, 2016
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