For more than 4 years I have been defending the interests of clients of Latvian banks, ABLV Bank, PNB Bank, Rietumu Bank, my clients are mostly citizens of Ukraine, but I also support the citizens of other European countries.

The first two banks are in the liquidation process, Rietumu Bank is still operating, but I definitely recommend to everyone to withdraw own funds from such bank.

The essence of my work is to pass by clients the compliance procedure on the purity of the origin of funds, as required by the liquidation procedure in accordance with the Law of the Republic of Latvia «On the Credit Institutions».

As for Rietumu Bank, quite often clients' funds are blocked during their AML inspections.

Most clients have successfully already passed the compliance procedure and finally gained access to their funds, but there are also those who have received freezing decisions from the Latvian Financial Intelligence Agency (Finanšu izlūkošanas dienests).

Such decision of the Financial Intelligence of Latvia, of course, is subject to appeal, until November 2021 through a special department of the Prosecutor General's Office of the Republic of Latvia, then - directly to the court.

I will not go into the details of the process, but to cancel the decision of the Financial Intelligence of Latvia is almost impossible, as well as arrests imposed by the police in criminal cases under Art. 195 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Latvia on the fact of money laundering.

The only thing the client can hope for is the «humanity» of the Latvian Economic Court, which was established in 2020 to deal with money laundering cases and has the right to decide to confiscate the client's funds to the Latvian budget.

The last instance in this category of cases is the Riga District Court, as a court of appeal, which reviews the legality of decisions of the Economic Court of Latvia.

With one of my clients, who has been a client of Rietumu Bank since 2014 and saved about 100,000 euros in the Bank's account, we passed all the way from appeals against decisions on freezing, seizure and confiscation of funds.

By the decision of the Economic Court of Latvia, which wasn’t changed by the Riga District Court, the client's funds were confiscated to the budget of the Republic of Latvia.

In May 2022, in cooperation with our Luxembourg colleague, attorney at law Francois Moyse, we filed a complaint against the Republic of Latvia to the European Court of Human Rights regarding the illegality of such confiscation, which was adopted in violation of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

This is the first case in our proceedings that went outgoing the jurisdiction of Latvia, but I understand that is not the last.