A Danish bank has successfully won a lawsuit, which means that it can now prevent its employees from buying Bitcoin BTC and other cryptocurrencies.
That sounds good on the surface, but a potential ban does not apply to buying cryptocurrency. "On the job," reports Bloomberg.
According to a Danish court ruling yesterday, Nordea Bank is now free to block its employees from buying and trading cryptocurrencies in their own time. They are also prohibited from buying crypto on behalf of others.
How will the bank enforce a ban and what? Emagazine.credit-suisse.com/app/art … = 157 & lang = DE If someone violates the directive, it remains unclear.
The bank continues to let its employees do all the cryptography they already have, but they "encourage" them to sell what they have and forego future investment dystopia is here.
Nordea Bank has cited risks and a lack of industry regulation in its decision to dissuade employees from experimenting with digital assets. Nevertheless, a company that dictates what employees can and can not do in their private lives seems to cross a line.
But that's not all.
Nordea will allow its employees to invest in the cryptocurrency of the bank's products and financial instruments. So is that alright? But regular Bitcoin is not.
Product development staff at Nordea are allowed to "make small investments in cryptocurrency" if they have a legitimate business reason for doing so.
The irony does not stop here though. As CoinDesk points out, Nordea Bank was previously investigated for money laundering. Reuters reported earlier this year that the bank's head office had been searched for claims.
The court's press release also states that employees should not trade in financial instruments to the point where they take their own financial position.
Sure, it sounds bad, and thinking about a company that dictates what its employees do and can not do outside of work makes my skin crawl, but it would be pretty bad for a bank to have employees who look like they are making terrible financial decisions. It makes sense that a bank does not want its employees to take risks with Bitcoin. This happens to the best of us.
Published December 3, 2019 – 16:01 UTC
