Banca Etica Suspends A/I's Account While Condemning the Sanctions Behind It
Italian ethical bank Banca Etica has temporarily suspended the account of Autistici/Inventati (A/I), a collective providing secure digital services to activists, after the U.S. placed A/I on its OFAC terrorism list. The bank, which had never flagged the account for money laundering, fears U.S. secondary sanctions could cut off services for its 130,000 customers. Banca Etica condemns the political use of counterterrorism tools and is seeking solutions with Italian and European institutions to avoid closure.
Banca Etica strongly condemns the use of OFAC listings for political purposes and the imposition of related sanctions outside of strict compliance with the original mandate of these measures, which were created to prosecute criminal and terrorist activities.
- impossiblefork
I think what's needed here is for A/I to go the ECHR.
A state failing to prevent foreign sanctions from restricting the freedom of association of its citizens is certainly a breach of article 11. It doesn't matter whether it's caused by a foreign state, the duty of Italy is clearly to ensure freedom of association in practice.
- mlok
"A/I" = "Austistici/Inventati" Collective
"Autistici/Inventati is a Tuscan collective that develops independent IT services and provides email addresses, websites, blogs, and newsletters to other activists and collectives."
- csense
So...what happens to the money in the account? AFAIK normally when your account is closed, your bank gives you a cashier's check which you can use to open an account at another bank. But given that they're in OFAC, what if no other bank will have them?
Does someone who works for A/I have to drive to Italy and pick up a briefcase full of cash? Or does the money stay in the bank, inaccessible to A/I, until A/I proves they aren't terrorists? Which could be...forever, since it's basically impossible to improve you're not a terrorist once you're formally included on The Big List Of Terrorists? How do you hire a lawyer to argue your case if the money you would use to pay them has already been taken away?
- mdp2021
> an Italian bank maintaining relationships with an OFAC-listed entity could be subject to "secondary sanctions" that would involve the cessation of all services provided by US intermediaries. This would mean that all Banca Etica customers would be unable to use credit and debit cards (which currently rely on a substantial monopoly by US operators)
«A substantial monopoly by US operators»: very strong words, very important words: those "US operators" are the part that is responsible for having destroyed monetics in the eu - the part that forced NFC on bank cards.
Of course the problem should have been solved immediately. now we have banks with crippled services here.
- tevon
Ok I agree that de-banking is not a good thing overall from a political perspective.
But in this case, it seems fairly clear that A/I was providing services to organizations listed as Terrorist Organizations by the US, UK, and Canada. Seems like the best way around this is... don't do business with terrorists? I'd understand more if these were ONLY deemed by the US, but this is an international group.