Recently, law enforcement officers have been actively imposing arrests on the accounts of enterprises, business owners and individuals in criminal proceedings. Investigators go to court, receive a decision on the seizure of accounts and send it to the bank. You can find out about blocking only when the bank has actually executed the court order and blocked the accounts.
Arrest may also lead to other negative consequences - the bank may terminate relations and close the account as with an unprofitable counterparty due to problems with law enforcement agencies.
The grounds for blocking accounts are initiated criminal proceedings for fraud, crimes against property, economic and corruption crimes. Investigators refer, for example, to the fact that accounts are important for the investigation as material evidence; that it is possible to secure a civil claim of the victim or confiscate funds in the future.
Law enforcement monitors the movement of funds to the accounts of the company, and from the company to other contractors. And then go to court with long lists of different legal entities and their accounts for arrest, implicating each enterprise in the commission of a crime.
Therefore, if your company appears somewhere in this chain, even as a result of the normal execution of contracts, the court may take the side of the investigator and seize the accounts without checking the real grounds for this. When the court decision reaches the bank, the accounts will be blocked immediately and the company's activities will actually be stopped. How to unblock bank accounts after their seizure?
How to unblock accounts after seizure?
Neither the investigator nor the prosecutor has the right to seize accounts on their own. For this, they turn to the court. Accordingly, it is possible to cancel the arrest only in court. What is the procedure for unblocking an account?
✅ Get acquainted with the court decision and case materials. First you need to get a court decision. You can ask the bank to issue a court decision, if the bank refuses - find out at least the details of the court decision and find out which court and in which case the arrest was made. After that, you need to familiarize yourself with the decision and case materials in court.
✅ Apply to the court to lift the arrest. From the court decision and materials you can find out what the court was guided by during the arrest. These are usually general phrases that the company may be involved in a crime, as well as reprints of articles of the Criminal Procedure Code on the seizure of property.
It is necessary to approach the preparation of the motion in a thorough manner and provide as many arguments as possible to refute the investigator's assumptions. The task of the defense in such cases is to prove that the seizure was unjustified and that there is no need for further blocking of accounts.
What arguments should be used in court?
- ✅ Absence of suspicion. The investigator did not raise any suspicions against the officials of the enterprise in committing any offenses in these criminal proceedings, which indicates a lack of connection with the persons involved in the case.
- ✅The reality of business transactions with the contractor against whom the criminal proceedings are being investigated. Attach evidence that will confirm the performance of the contract with the counterparty (copies of contracts, acts of works performed / services rendered, goods and transport invoices, explanations of persons who were involved in the execution of the contract).
- This will help to confirm the absence of any illegal actions on the part of your company, as well as confirm that the seized funds were obtained legally and have no signs of physical evidence.
- ✅ Absence of physical evidence. Often, when making a decision, the court unjustifiably comes to the conclusion that the funds in the accounts are material evidence that is important for the investigation. It is generally difficult to link the funds in the accounts to any crime, especially in criminal proceedings based on actual cases in which there are no suspects.
- ✅ Other grounds. Depending on the situation, it is possible to note the absence of damages; lack of civil action; delaying the investigation of the case with the aim of obstructing the legitimate economic activity of the enterprise, which leads to significant material losses. A well-prepared petition to lift the arrest from the accounts is a guarantee of a positive court decision.
What to do next if the court lifts the arrest?
Submit the court order to the bank. The bank that seized the account is obliged to cancel the seizure and unblock the accounts after receiving a court decision. Sometimes at this stage there are also difficulties associated with the fact that the bank is waiting for the court decision to appear in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions in order to verify the authenticity of the court decision. However, such procedures exist only in some banks.
Conclusions
It is quite possible to cancel the seizure from the company's accounts in criminal proceedings and unblock the accounts. Correctly selected arguments for the court and control over the execution of the court decision will allow you to unblock the account and fully continue to carry out your activities.
Attached are some of the most recent judgments on the cancellation of garnishment of accounts obtained by the lawyers of the Bargen Law Firm
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