Chile’s Orionx Crypto Exchange Gets Favorable Legal Ruling Against Bank

An ongoing dispute between banks and cryptocurrency exchanges took a new turn. An appeals court has ruled in favor of one crypto exchange against one of the largest banks in the country. Five major banks have also separately responded to lawsuits against them in court.

Ruling from the Fourth Chamber of the Court of Appeals of Santiago was in favor of cryptocurrency exchange Orionx against Banco Estado for closing its account, local media reported. The ruling, which orders the only government-owned bank in Chile to reopen the exchange’s account.

The court decided that the bank’s action constitutes,

“an arbitrary and illegal action, which constitutes a deprivation of the right protected by Article 19 No. 2 of the Political Constitution of the Republic, that is, the right to equality before the law,”

La Tercera quoted the ruling.

Earlier last week it was reported that five banks have responded to the lawsuit against them before the TDLC. The banks are Santander, Banco de Chile, Banco de Crédito e Inversiones (Bci), Scotiabank, and Itaú. The exchanges allege that they abused their dominant position when they either closed the accounts of or denied opening them for crypto exchanges.

Banco de Chile responded by saying:

“The closing of Cryptomkt’s current accounts is not based on the alleged danger of the activity carried out by the plaintiff or because it is not regulated by the authority, but…in the absence of concrete information that allows Banco de Chile to develop the due diligence in the matter of money laundering, since it is required to justify the transactions in the current accounts.”

Notably, Orionx sued six major banks last month for abusing their power and quashing its crypto payment business. Previously, another crypto exchange, Buda.com, filed a lawsuit against ten banks for closing its accounts and well as the accounts of another local crypto exchange, Cryptomkt. The antitrust court subsequently ordered three banks, including Banco Estado, to reopen the crypto exchanges’ accounts while the lawsuit is still pending.

They denied any abuse of monopolistic position, stating that it would be difficult to do so because crypto is a practically decentralized market, with a large number of actors, according to public information available.