The online bank Monabanq has just been ordered by the courts to pay tens of thousands of euros to a customer who was the victim of a scam. According to the Lille judicial court, the banking establishment failed in its duty of vigilance. Explanations.
The case dates back to 2019. A customer of the online bank Monabank made several transfers for a total of €120,000 to several banking establishments located abroad (in Spain, Hungary and Portugal) in as part of a purchase of SCPI shares.
At the end of the year, the financial markets authority informs it of the possibility of scam. A fear unfortunately confirmed. When the victim asks the InfoScpi platform to recover the invested funds, they notice that the company has simply disappeared from the radar. A year later, the complaint was closed.
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The customer turns against Monabanq for breach of her duty of vigilance
For the client, the matter is not over and she then decides to turn against Monabanq. In a complaint filed in January 2021, she demanded that the banking establishment reimburses him for the €120,000 invested at a loss. For the plaintiff’s lawyer, the Monabanq company failed in its monitoring obligations and its duty of vigilance. Without surprise, the bank, for its part, contests any breach.
Before going any further, it is appropriate to return to the duty of vigilance. According to article L 561-6 of the monetary and financial code, bankers have a duty to warn their uninformed clients. In other words, they must carefully examine financial transactions deemed unusual according to the profile of their clients. For Monabanq, the client was negligent in agreeing to pay large sums to an unknown company without having carried out prior research (in particular on the known risks of investments in SCPIs).
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Justice recognizes the bank’s negligence
But for the plaintiff, the bank should have warned her noting in particular the unusual amount of transfers, the geographical location of the beneficiaries (three banks abroad) or the fact that a new, different establishment was entered for each new transaction.
Especially since, as highlighted by the court decision rendered on October 6, 2023, the three investments made of €30,000, €40,000 and €50,000 were necessarily made by the financial advisor of the client (an individual cannot transfer such large sums without the intervention of his advisor).
“As the Monabanq company does not claim to have contacted its client regarding the transactions concerned other than by executing the requested transfer orders, it necessarily committed a breach of its duty of vigilance, without the supposed thoughtfulness of the victim not ‘had an exonerating character from its own responsibility’, writes the Lille judicial court in its decision.
Result, the bank was ordered to pay half of the sums invested, namely 60,000 eurosunder “the loss of opportunity not to invest one’s capital”. Please note that in this specific situation, the compensation awarded does not cover the entire amount invested.
Source: Legalis