The Danish bank Nordea may prohibit its employees from trading in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. That was the opinion of the Danish court, here to read in PDF. The bank has the right to provide guidelines for owning and trading crypto, even outside working hours.
The Danish court finds cryptocurrency’s risky
The bank actually forbade this in January 2018, but from now on the ban will also be recognized by the court. The use of bitcoin goes against the bank’s principles, and Nordea’s point of view can be partly understood from Nordea’s perspective. It is remarkable that employees are also not allowed to trade in cryptocurrency in their free time. A considerable restriction on freedom.
But the Danish court finds the ban justified. According to the court, cryptocurrencys are risky, and these risks justify the limitation to act for the employees of Nordea. The lawsuit arose initially because the workers’ union in Denmark did not agree with Nordea’s decision. This is because banning the possession of crypto coins disrupts the personal lives of employees.
Kent Petersen, the president of the court explains:
“It is important for us and our members to determine what rights managers have. In this case, these rights go well beyond what we consider appropriate. “
Owning crypto coins damages the bank’s reputation
But the ruling of the Danish court would not have happened without the intervention of Nordea. The bank finds it harmful to reputation if their employees trade in bitcoins and cryptocurrencys. According to the bank, the market in bitcoin is unregulated, and bitcoin is used for criminal activities.
That is a bit ironic, because at Nordea some customers can trade in cryptocurrency derivatives. With derivatives you can gamble on the price of a financial product without actually having it. For example, think of bitcoin futures.
In addition, Nordea itself was involved in a money laundering scandal earlier this year, according to Reuters. It was then about the Estonian branch of the group.
Related posts:
GitHub Libra Code draws criticism from users 
Tipping on Reddit and Vimeo in BAT introduced by Brave 
Newcomers to the crypto market have to pay attention to scams and pump and dumps 
Hardly any growth in downloaded crypto apps, despite tripling price bitcoin 
Bloomberg accepts Bitcoin – says cryptomonads are here to stay 
The Central Bank can release their cryptocurrencies earlier than expected
