As stated, at no stage of the contacts between the defendant and the plaintiff was the defendant presented with any evidence indicating the source of the money, its connection to the deceased and his right to receive it, nor with respect to the Panamanian company, not even during the course of the legal proceedings.
Quite surprisingly, the plaintiff did not bring to testify on behalf of the anonymous friend of the deceased who, according to her, gave her the information in relation to the account in Singapore, even though according to her version he was the one who recommended that the deceased open it, and ostensibly could have added information in this regard, or at least clarified that she had exhausted every possible avenue for obtaining such information.
The fact that she did not do so in the circumstances of the case before me, not only does she act in accordance with the rule that applies to a litigant's refusal to summon relevant witnesses, but also in view of her claim regarding the lack of information and the fact that she is a person who assisted her in the past, raises very serious questions.
- The above was sufficient to convince the defendant that the defendant's decision to refrain from opening the account is consistent with the requirements and provisions of the law imposed on him, the main points of which are as follows:
- Section 2(a) of the Prohibition of Money Laundering Order, which states that "knowing the customer" by a banking corporation includes "clarifying the source of the financial assets in respect of which the services are provided" and section 2(b) prohibits a banking corporation from providing financial services to a customer if the customer was not properly acquainted with the customer, and in their case, the customer was not properly recognized while the plaintiff did not indicate the source of the money and the deceased's connection to it (see paragraph 20 in the Toledano case).
- Section 30(b) of Procedure 411 requires a bank that identifies a high risk with respect to the customer to conduct an inquiry regarding the source of the funds that are supposed to be deposited in the account.
To be precise, one of the "red flags" mentioned in the appendix to the Supervisor of Banks' letter of November 23, 2016 (section 17) as indicating such a risk is a case in which "the customer is unable or refuses to disclose the source of his wealth...", and the emphasis on "incapacitated" is very relevant in our case in light of the plaintiff's claim that it is not a matter of lack of cooperation on her part, but rather of inability as an unconscious heir.