PARAMARIBO, Suriname’s chief executive officer of Finabank, Eblein Frankie, has welcomed a ruling by the Court of Appeal in Amsterdam regarding the Euro19.5 million (One Euros=US$1.29 cent) seized by the Fiscal Intelligence and Investigation Service (FIOD) of the Netherlands in 2018.
Frankie said he hoped the court decision would result in the release of the money and that regular payment services would resume.
“As a country, bank and public, we have experienced the inconvenience of a flawed payment system. We hope that this will soon be a thing of the past. We have also suffered a lot of reputational damage and look forward to a rapid closure of this case,” he added.
The Court on Tuesday ruled that it be returned to the banks. The matter had come up for hearing last month after the Court of Cassation had referred it back to a lower court. The Central Bank of Suriname (CVBS), Hakrinbank, Finabank, and De Surinaamsche Bank had filed the case against the Dutch judiciary, initially winning but losing on appeal.
Lawyers for the banks had argued that the seizure was unlawful. In April 2018, the FIOD of the Netherlands seized the Euros 19.5 million that the CBvS exported to Hong Kong to facilitate the operations of the commercial banks on suspicion of money laundering.
The District Court of Noord-Holland declared the seizure unlawful in December 2019. The court found that the money should not have been seized because the Central Bank of Suriname is a state body that enjoys immunity under international law.
But the Public Prosecutor appealed against that verdict, and in a pervasive opinion, the Advocate General advised the Supreme Court on February 2, last year, to uphold the court’s decision.
Frankie said he is pleased that the complaint procedure has been won, noting that the Dutch Public Prosecution Service did not have a strong case, and this was shown again with the court’s ruling on Tuesday.
Former Hakrinbank director Jim Bou told Suriname online publication Starnieuws that justice has been done due to the court ruling.
He said there was never a compliance issue because the banks had performed their customer due diligence correctly.
“The requirement of the Dutch Public Prosecution Service to know your customer was an unreasonable requirement. The banks have adhered to the compliance rules,” he added.
According to Bousiad, other non-legal matters will not be discussed now, saying, “the Dutch court has therefore rightly rejected the claim of the Public Prosecution Service.
“There is every basis for a substantial claim by the Surinamese banks for the considerable damage suffered,” he added, noting that the case had dragged on for more than four years.
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