Chile’s Free Competition Defense Court (TDLC) has ordered two major banks, Banco Itaú and BancoEstado, to facilitate current account services to local cryptocurrency exchange, Buda.com.
As reported by Diario Financiero, the court sided with the exchange as the banks failed to present enough evidence to link Buda’s business with a Ponzi scheme.
“The bank has not been able to present sufficient information to dismiss the serious presumption of acts that threaten free competition that the Court determined to grant the precautionary measure in favor of Buda.com,” Buda’s Chief Legal Officer, Samuel Cañas, told the local media.
Banks against Crypto Exchanges
Both Banco Itaú and BancoEstado closed the accounts maintained by the crypto exchange in 2018 during an investigation against Terra Finance, an investment company that scammed people.
The axe was dropped on the crypto exchanges when four victims of the scam said that they were customers of the cryptocurrency exchange. They lost 100 million Chilean pesos (around $200,000) in the Ponzi scheme. The banks then alleged that Buda did not do anything to stop such frauds and, in turn, cut their ties with it.
“Buda is indirectly allowing the use of Itaú’s systems by other cryptocurrency exchanges, of recognized risk, without being able to do anything about it,” the banks alleged earlier.
However, the court did not find the evidence presented to establish the connection between Buda and the fraudulent scheme. Furthermore, Buda’s CEO pointed out that the legal battle is still not over.
“The new information presented does not undermine the serious presumption of the right that is claimed or of the facts denounced in the lawsuit,” the court said.
The Chilean banks were always hostile towards crypto, and many of them denied services to several exchanges in 2018, which forced them to go to court. Though the TDLC favored the exchanges earlier, the two banks again moved against Buda.
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