UAE BARQ برق الإمارات – نبضك
Dubai Commercial Court sentenced a UAE bank to pay AED 5,000,000 with a 9% interest from the date of the case in additional to AED 100,000 as a compensation after a client account been embizzeled by an employee who swapped the victim’s SIM card.
The case dates back to 2017 when 5 million dirhams was stolen from a bank account and then closed without the owner’s knowledge.
Ghassan El Daye, Partner and head of litigation Middle East with the UK-based law firm Charles Russell Speechlys, said “the account holder used to work in UAE but moved out of the country leaving behind AED 5M in his bank account which he opened in 2015, when he visited the UAE in May 2017 and used the ATM to withdraw cash, he found that his account was empty, and was advised to file a lawsuit.
The victim filed a civil case against the bank in August 2018 and during a court hearing in September 2018 the victim’s defense said the bank should be held responsible based on facts and experts’ findings but the bank insisted that it was the customer’s responsibility because he owned the original SIM and PIN, and argued that he should have objected to the transactions within 30 days of reviewing the account statement. The Dubai Commercial Court rejected the bank’s claims in October 2019 and announced that it was responsible for the fraud, and ordered the bank to pay the victim a sum of AED 5 million, with a 9% interest from the date of the case filling and compensation of AED100,000.
An expert’s report submitted to court came in favor of the victim’s argument regarding the confidential data including his official documents and contact numbers, being illegally divulged to others by an employee of the bank. The information was illegally passed to others who used it to replace the client’s SIM card.
