The Court of Cassation enforces banking monopoly by ruling against individuals for illegal practice of banking profession.
Extract
[...] The procedures begin with a conviction of the applicants in the appeal in first instance for the illegal exercise of the profession. Unsatisfied, the applicants appeal, however, the judges of the facts confirm the decision of first instance and condemn these to 8 months of imprisonment with suspension, for having carried out as a usual matter banking operations by persons other than a credit institution, manifesting by secret transfers of funds abroad in the context of a parallel exchange system having the effect of circumventing the tax rules of the two countries. [...]
[...] The solution is not surprising, the Court is only expressing its protective nature, on the one hand towards these third parties but above all to reaffirm the banking monopoly and the fact that no exception can be made. The idea here is to serve as a moral lesson for anyone who would play with the 'usual' character of these operations as noted in the facts, because this term 'habituel'habitually », shows that to fall within the offense of illegal practice of the banking profession, there is a certain limit not to be exceeded. [...]
[...] ) were to be, " or converted or converted in machine tools delivered in Algeria, or exchanged for dinars given to designated people. After highlighting on the one hand the in concreto control of characterization of banking operations we will conclude by highlighting the habitual nature of these operations that come into conflict with the banking monopoly The habitual nature of the operation coming into conflict with the banking monopoly If the applicants face the head of accusations of illegal exercise of the profession of banker, this is explained in large part by the habitual nature of the operation of those coming into conflict with the banking monopoly In fact, to justify its rejection, the High Court based its decision on the explicit reiteration of the sovereign assessment of the judges of the first instance who had previously found that 'the funds collected by them from many Algerian immigrants settled in FR should be either converted into machine tools delivered to Algeria or changed into dinars given to designated persons residing in that country; that they add that the importance of the sums seized and the arrangement of a cache in the spare wheel of the vehicle testify to the habitual nature of the operation. ». [...]
[...] As a result, the Court of Cassation applies a strict hermeneutics of Article L.311-1 of the CMF in its decision to uphold the appeal judgment that had previously characterized among the disputed facts the receipt of repayable funds from the public in accordance with the article. Here, there is only a stupid and cruel application of the aforementioned article describing banking operations: this is the case of our two applicants who received funds from an identified public that they were to repay subsequently, even though they were not credit institutions: this constitutes a serious attack on the banking monopoly. [...]
[...] However, it is interesting to note that the appeal of the applicants is based on this same question: namely the receipt of funds from the public. They claim a violation of the aforementioned article allowing the receipt of funds from the public, in that the trial judges did not verify whether the depositors were third parties within the meaning of this same article, or whether the applicants had free disposal of the funds. Nevertheless, through its light control, both the Court of Cassation and the Court of Appeal agree on the point that the funds were indeed collected from third parties, and that they had free disposal of them since the applicants converted or exchanged these funds into dinars to then be handed over to designated persons. [...]
