June 22, 2018
An Irish bank has been ordered to pay 20,000 euros ($23,500) to an Iranian couple for forbidding them from transferring any funds to bank accounts in their native country.
The Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) ruled that the bank discriminated against the couple of the grounds of race.
The woman secured Irish citizenship in 2015. The two came to Ireland as students and later set up a small medical data analysis company.
The woman had a bank account in Ireland for 10 years and her husband for five before they received a request last year to agree to a number of restrictions on the operation of their bank account.
The bank said the restrictions were necessary to comply with national and EU legislation in relation to countering money laundering and the financing of terrorism and the requirement to comply with sanctions against Iran.
However, in her ruling, WRC Adjudication Officer Marian Duffy found that the bank did discriminate against the two on the grounds of race.
Duffy said that “alternative methods to counter money laundering/terrorist financing and US sanction breaches were open to the respondent.”
She said: “These include the implementation of robust IT systems and procedures, customer advice/guidance and information systems and or a helpline as part of the process to monitor account activities.”
Duffy found that the bank’s policy was neither appropriate nor necessary to achieve its stated aims and therefore was not objectively justified.
The couple said that if they signed the bank’s declaration form they could no longer use their account for any purpose relating to Iran, such as to buy airline tickets for holidays in Iran, to give parents cash presents or to do any business with Iran.
They did not sign the form and they were told by the bank if they did not do so their account would be closed.
The two submitted that the bank discriminated against them on the grounds of their Iranian nationality.
The bank said the two were rated as high risk customers because of their Iranian nationality.
The bank’s Head of Sanctions said the bank had no appetite for dealing with customers who had affiliations with Iran. She said the purpose of the declaration form was to transfer the risk associated with the sanctions regime to the customer.
The official said that if the Central Bank of Ireland fined the bank for any breaches in relation to the account, the bank could use the signed form to pass on the fine to the customer.
She said the bank has a branch in the US and for this reason is caught by US rules. While the US sanctions do not prohibit financial transactions, banks can be fined if they violate intricate sanctions rules.