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A man has lost 130,000 euros after accidentally transferring the money to the wrong bank account, but Spain’s Supreme Court has ruled that the receiving bank cannot be held liable for the mistake, as it processed the transfer according to EU laws.
The incident happened on 30 October 2017, when the company Alvisa Prescast Factory, S.L. (now Alvipre Factory, S.L.) ordered Bankinter S.A. to transfer 130,000 euros to another one of the company's accounts but with Caixabank. However, there was a mistake in the IBAN digits, which meant the money went to someone else's account with Banco Sabadell, S.A. - that of Alvisa's old work contact, company Lleida Elevación, S.L.
The error was discovered on the next day and Alvisa Prescast Factory, S.L. immediately contacted Bankinter, who in turn requested the operation to be reversed. Unfortunately, it was too late, as the mistaken recipient had already made thirteen withdrawals, nine of them urgent, for a total amount of 95,345 euros and transferred a further 34,170 euros on 1 November.
As a result of these events, the affected company sued the receiving company for misappropriation and requested that Sabadell Bank be ordered to compensate it with 130,000 euros for damages caused as a result of non-contractual liability.
According to the court, "it has not been proven at what time the staff of the defendant Banco de Sabadell, S.A. became aware of the error, as there are contradictory versions from Bankinter and the Sabadell employees", who denied having been aware of the calls. Sabadell stated that the retrocession letter only arrived at the Banco de Sabadell, S.A. office at 4am on 1 November, which was a public holiday, and that their employees were not able to access it until 2 November.
Two courts rejected the affected company's claims, both agreeing that Sabadell did not incur any liability whatsoever, since the transfer was executed in accordance with the unique identifier (IBAN) provided by the ordering company. Alvisa Prescast Factory, S.L. was found as the sole responsible entity for the error.
Not satisfied, the company lodged an appeal in cassation claiming that the judgment infringed Article 44 of Law 16/2009. The High Court underlined that national and European legislation clearly establishes that banks must process transfers solely on the basis of the unique identifier provided by the payer. There is no legal obligation to check that the name of the beneficiary matches the account holder.
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