Huma's Bankers - are they responsible?

BBRowlands has posted a long post on the OTCC forum which contains the quote below:

"The deposits should be in a ring fenced bank account- now the same should have applied to ACC deposits but clearly did not"

I have posted the following rant there because I thought I was on this forum - never mind, I'll stick it up here as well to see if anyone agrees.

So the law has been broken.

Given that Huma feel no compunction to return what has been handed over, even when ordered to do so by a court of law, do their bankers bear any responsibility?

They must have known that Huma were (allegedly) property developers

They knew that article 2 of the law says developers have to keep the deposits in accounts separate from any other of the developer's accounts (i.e. ringfenced).  What's more, the money was only to be used for building houses (honest that's what it says).

So, when they received huge sums of money paid by individuals into Huma's account, shouldn't they have ensured that the money was ringfenced and separate from Humas operational accounts? 

Does the bank have a duty to ensure that the money that has been invested with them is being used for a legitimate purpose?

When the money was used even when no building was going on (any time from November 2005 to the present day),did nobody at the bank think to check?

In the UK, anti money laundering laws require financial institutions to make checks that the money they are handling is clean and not the proceeds of crime.  As I said when I started this reply - the law has been broken and someone is going to pay.

I fully intend to pursue this any which way I can and I will rattle as many cages as I can and see what falls out!

I forgot to add that the law appears to say it is the bank's responsibility to demand the guarantees...

"Para la apertura de estas cuentas o depósitos la Entidad bancaria o Caja de Ahorros, bajo su responsabilidad, exigirá la garantía a que se refiere la condición anterior."

can anyone else see any other translation than the following:

"On opening these (ring-fenced) accounts or deposits, the financial institution (bank or savings bank), under its responsibility, will demand the guarantee referred to in the previous clause."

I've asked before and I'm open to suggestions....but only polite ones!

Your assumption is that the banks' new that the monies were deposits.  It is quite possible that HUMA just paid the monies in to their normal bank account to pay off their overdraft and never informed the banks they were deposits.  The bank would probably have no way of telling if they were deposits or final installments. 

Having said that you could be right and it is worth contacting the banks about this - but do you know which bank HUMA paid your moneis into?

I know alright - I organised the transfer!

I also think that individual transfers in excess of €50K from named private individuals in GB should provide plenty of circumstantial evidence - you can get sacked, fined and imprisoned over here for suspecting something (working in a financial institution that is) and not reporting it!

Thanks for your support though, I'll let you know how I get on.