Home · Services · Bank Account Freeze Review
Service · 03 of 06
7-day strategy
AML · Compliance · Sanctions

Your account is
blocked, and nobody
will tell you why.

A Swiss legal review of exactly what your European bank did, why they actually did it, and what can realistically be done about it. Written in plain language. Delivered in 7 days. Used to write to the bank, and — when it's the right step — to regulators.

From
€2,400
Strategy memo
7days
First response
< 24h
Start a bank freeze review What's the clock on this?
◉ Marc Hofer · Banking lead ◉ Ex-tier-1 Swiss bank compliance ◉ EN · DE · FR · RU
M
Meridian Banque SA Private banking · EU
MRDNCHGG BIC · Swift
⚠ ACCOUNT RESTRICTED · COMPLIANCE REVIEW IN PROGRESS
Balance on record
€ 87,420.50
Available
€ 0.00
Notice from bank compliance
"Pursuant to our internal anti-money-laundering obligations, we have placed a temporary restriction on the above account. We are unable to provide further details at this time."
REF · MRDN/AML/2026/•••• · DATED 02·V·2026
Last 3 transactions — declined
06·V·2026
SEPA outgoing · rent
−€ 2,100
BLK
04·V·2026
Card POS · Geneva
−€ 48.20
BLK
03·V·2026
Salary inbound · REDACTED
+€ 6,400
BLK
Compliance contact
compliance@mrdn.•••
Reference required
MRDN/AML/2026/••••
mrdnbanque.ch
This is a notice · not actionable
BLOCKED
LIVE CASE
Account restricted
Legal response · 7 days
Understand first

What your bank actually did.

Most clients who reach us after a bank freeze describe the same experience: a card stopped working, a transfer bounced, a login refused — and then a cold, cryptic sentence from the bank that "restrictions have been placed on the account" with no further explanation. No name. No timeline. No one who will pick up the phone and tell you what happened.

That silence is not a bug. It is, in many European jurisdictions, a legal obligation on the bank. Under anti-money-laundering rules, banks are often forbidden from telling the client what triggered the freeze. This is called "tipping-off" prohibition and it explains why your branch manager genuinely cannot answer your questions — even if they want to.

What matters, though, is that your silence is not their silence. You have rights, you have channels, and — crucially — you often have a much shorter window to act than you realise.

The freeze is not the problem. The silence is. Our job is to translate a vague compliance letter into a clear legal picture: what the bank actually did, under which legal basis, and what the next 30 days look like from here.
What a bank can actually do — from mild to severe

Request for information (RFI)

Compliance asks for documents. No block yet — but if unanswered, escalation is automatic.

Stage 1

Temporary restriction

Outgoing transfers blocked, cards disabled. Incoming still lands — but you cannot use it.

Stage 2

Full freeze · suspicious activity report

Account frozen. SAR/STR filed with national FIU. Bank is legally forbidden from telling you.

Stage 3

Termination & exit

Relationship terminated. Funds held until cleared. No new account can be opened with this group.

Stage 4
Why banks freeze accounts

Nine reasons we see almost every week.

Despite the silence, freezes are not random. In our experience, almost every case falls into one of these categories — and identifying which one yours is in is the first step of the strategy.

01

Sanctions or Interpol name-match

A compliance engine flagged your name against OFAC, SECO, EU, UN or Interpol lists. Often a false positive — but the bank must treat it as real until cleared.

Basis: EU sanctions regulations · national AML acts
02

Adverse media hit

An article, a blog post, a leaked document mentions your name in an unfavourable context. The screening algorithm flags it, even if it's years old or inaccurate.

Basis: internal AML/KYC policy
03

PEP status — you, or someone near you

You, a family member, or a business partner is classified as a politically exposed person. Banks are required to apply enhanced due diligence — or exit.

Basis: 4th/5th/6th EU AML Directive
04

Source-of-funds question

A large incoming transfer — sale of real estate, inheritance, crypto proceeds — triggered an automatic request for documentation the bank didn't receive on time.

Basis: AML Act · source-of-wealth review
05

Counterparty in a sanctioned jurisdiction

Money came from or went to a person or company connected to Russia, Iran, Belarus, Syria or other high-risk jurisdictions — even lawfully.

Basis: EU restrictive measures
06

Crypto-related inflow

A transfer from a crypto exchange, OTC desk or wallet that the bank cannot trace to a specific source. Increasingly common — and increasingly automatic.

Basis: Travel Rule · MiCAR · national AML
07

Documentation expiry

Your ID, proof of address or tax residency expired and was not renewed on time. Automatic freeze while the file is "incomplete" — a technical, not a risk-based, block.

Basis: KYC refresh obligations
08

Unusual activity pattern

The way you use the account no longer matches the profile the bank holds on you — new country of login, atypical counterparty, sudden transaction size.

Basis: internal transaction monitoring
09

Third-party legal request

A court order, tax authority request, or foreign mutual-legal-assistance request compelled the bank to freeze. Often the most serious — and the least told.

Basis: judicial/administrative order

Important. The bank will not confirm which of these categories applies to you. Our review works the other way around: we reconstruct the likely trigger by examining the exact wording of the letter, the timing, the transactions immediately preceding the freeze, your profile, and the bank's internal policies. In most cases we can identify the category with high confidence — and strategy flows from there.

The clock you did not ask for

The timeline you're already on. Whether you act or not.

From the moment the first restriction lands, a timeline starts. Some of it you can see. Most of it you cannot. Here is what is actually happening, week by week.

Day 0 First restriction
A transfer bounces. A card declines. A login fails. You call the branch — they cannot help. An email arrives referring to "compliance review" without further detail. Your window starts here — not when you finally get worried enough to call a lawyer.
Day 0 – 7 Internal investigation
The bank's financial crime team assembles your file. They review transactions, request information internally, and — in parallel — may file a suspicious activity report with the national FIU. This is the window where a well-drafted, timely response can often stop the escalation entirely.
Day 7 – 21 · YOU ARE LIKELY HERE The dangerous silence
You've written to the bank once or twice. You've received generic replies or no reply at all. Your money is stuck. The bank, internally, is deciding whether to escalate to full termination. This is the most common point at which our clients reach out. It is not too late — but it is no longer early.
Day 21 – 45 Decision point
The bank reaches an internal decision: lift the restriction, request further documentation, or exit the relationship. If you haven't engaged counsel by this point, the decision is made without your legal arguments on the table.
Day 45 – 90 Termination & onward reporting
If the decision is exit, a termination letter follows. Your funds are held until cleared — sometimes weeks, sometimes months. Critically, banks within the same group (and, in some jurisdictions, outside of it) may receive a shared compliance note. Opening a new account becomes materially harder from this point forward.
Day 90+ The ghost record
Even after funds are released, the internal record of the freeze persists. Some of it is shared with commercial compliance databases. Other banks screening you for onboarding will often see a flag — and act accordingly. Resolving this proactively is a separate, later exercise.
If you are in the 7–21 day window — we should talk today.

That is the window where a written, legally-framed response from a Swiss firm still has maximum impact on the bank's internal decision.

Start today
What we actually do

Seven days. Four deliberate steps.

The Bank Account Freeze Review is a structured engagement with a clear endpoint: a written legal strategy memo you can act on — or hand to another lawyer — in seven business days. Here is what happens during those seven days.

1

Document intake

We review every piece of correspondence from the bank, the SWIFT/SEPA rejection codes, the exact wording of each letter. Transactions immediately preceding the freeze. Your profile as the bank sees it.

DAY 1 – 2 · in parallel
2

Legal diagnosis

We reconstruct the likely legal basis and trigger category. We cross-check you against sanctions, PEP and adverse-media engines ourselves — so you know, with certainty, what the bank saw.

DAY 2 – 4 · core work
3

Strategy options

We set out your realistic legal options — typically 3 to 5 — with viability, timing and cost for each. This is not a list of good-to-haves. It is a prioritised roadmap with honest probabilities.

DAY 4 – 5 · strategy
4

Signed memo + debrief

You receive a 6–10 page strategy memo signed by our banking lead, plus a one-hour debrief call where every word is walked through with you in plain language. What to do, in what order, by when.

DAY 6 – 7 · delivery
What you receive

A written strategy. Not a phone call.

The output is a document, not a conversation. It lays out what happened, what it means, and what your options are — in writing, signed, under Swiss professional responsibility.

Strategy memorandum — 6 to 10 pages

Chronology of events, legal diagnosis, reconstructed trigger category, 3–5 viable courses of action ranked by probability and cost.

Draft letter to the bank's compliance

A first-response draft you can send directly, or that we send on your behalf as your counsel. Written in the legal register the bank's compliance actually reads.

Realistic timelines & costs

How long each option will take. What it will cost to continue. What it will not fix. Written by a lawyer, not a marketing page.

60-minute debrief call

With Marc Hofer or another senior member of the banking team. Every paragraph walked through with you until nothing is left as jargon.

LEGAL STRATEGY · CONFIDENTIAL

Meridian Banque · Restriction ref. MRDN/AML/2026

A
Formal response to compliance with SoW dossier est. 2 – 4 weeks · €1,800–2,400
HIGH
B
FINMA / AMF supervisory complaint est. 3 – 6 months · €4,500
MED
C
Ombudsman for banking disputes est. 2 – 4 months · €900
MED
D
Civil proceedings — damages & release est. 9 – 18 months · €18k+
LOW
E
Parallel account opening · second bank est. immediate · €0 legal
HIGH
Who this is for

The Bank Freeze Review is the right service when…

This is a diagnostic and strategy service. It is the right first step when you don't yet know what you're dealing with — and you want a proper answer before you spend money on a court case or a new lawyer who charges by the hour.

Your account was frozen without explanation

A cold letter referring to "compliance review", "AML obligations" or "risk policy" — and nothing useful beyond that.

The bank asked for documents — and went silent

You sent what they asked for. Now nothing. No acknowledgement, no timeline, no named contact. The account remains blocked.

You received a termination letter

The bank is exiting the relationship. You need to understand why, what the consequences are, and whether it can still be reversed.

A large transfer triggered a source-of-funds review

Inheritance, property sale, crypto proceeds, business exit — and suddenly a request for a file you never thought to prepare.

You were refused for a new account "for internal reasons"

A separate bank refused to onboard you without saying why. This usually means a compliance database flag — and it is often fixable.

You're facing an AML interview or call

The bank scheduled a formal "clarification" with compliance. What you say in that call matters enormously. Prepare with counsel first.

Before you do anything

What to do — and what makes it materially worse.

We have seen clients lose their case in the first week simply by doing — in good faith — exactly the wrong things. A frozen bank account is a compliance procedure, not a customer service issue. The rules of engagement are different.

✓ Do this

  • Save every piece of communicationEmails, letters, app notifications, SWIFT rejection messages. Date-stamp everything. This is your file.
  • Keep your answers short and factualUnder AML processes, long emotional explanations are read as evasion. Short, documentary, precise answers are read as cooperation.
  • Engage counsel within 7–14 daysThis is the window where a legal response still shapes the bank's internal decision. After day 21 it becomes much harder.
  • Open a parallel account elsewhere — calmlyBefore the termination letter arrives. A second functioning account is often the single most important practical step.

✕ Don't do this

  • Don't write angry emails to the branchEvery word is added to the file, and the file is shared with the decision-maker. "I'm going to sue you" never helps and often tips the internal balance.
  • Don't try to rush a transfer "around" the freezeAttempting to move funds to a third party, a family member, or another account during a compliance review can itself be classified as a suspicious act.
  • Don't volunteer documents that were not asked forIt sounds cooperative. It is rarely read that way. Every extra document is new material for the review — and new questions.
  • Don't sign anything the bank hands youAccount closure agreements, settlement forms, waivers. Almost always signed under pressure, almost always disadvantageous. Have counsel read it first.
A European private bank froze €220,000 of mine with a sentence about "compliance obligations". Three other lawyers told me to file a lawsuit — €30,000 and eighteen months. Valken's Marc Hofer wrote two letters. The bank lifted the restriction in twenty-three days. The strategy memo they delivered after seven days was worth, frankly, ten times what I paid.
D·K
Private client · D.K.
Tech founder · Austria · Funds released · 11 / 2025
Frequently asked

The questions we hear most often.

Can you guarantee my account will be unfrozen?

No honest lawyer can guarantee that. The decision sits with the bank's compliance function, and it is constrained by legal obligations we do not control. What we can guarantee is that after seven days you will have a precise legal picture of what happened, a ranked set of realistic options, and a professional response already drafted. In practice, for the majority of our clients, a well-framed first response from Swiss counsel results in either a lifted restriction or a clear, documented path forward.

I'm not in Switzerland and my bank isn't Swiss. Can you still help?

Yes — and this is in fact the majority of our work. We regularly advise clients whose accounts are with EU banks (Germany, France, Netherlands, Austria, Cyprus, Luxembourg) and UK banks. A Swiss law firm writing to a European bank's compliance is often read more seriously than a letter from a generalist local lawyer, precisely because this is what we do and banks know it.

The bank says they legally cannot tell me anything. Isn't the memo just speculation, then?

It is the opposite of speculation. It is structured reconstruction. After a certain number of cases — and we are well past a thousand — patterns are extremely consistent: the exact wording of the letter, the timing, the specific rejection code on a transfer, your profile and the transactions leading up to the freeze together narrow the trigger category down very precisely. In most files, we reach high confidence on what the bank is actually reacting to. That is the basis of the strategy.

Shouldn't I just sue them?

Almost never as a first step. Civil proceedings against a European bank typically cost €15,000 to €40,000, take 9–18 months, and — crucially — do not force the bank to lift a compliance-driven freeze any faster than a well-drafted letter does. In more than 80% of our files, the restriction is resolved through structured correspondence, without litigation. Where litigation is genuinely the right tool, we tell you — and we explain exactly why.

How long until I get my money back?

Honest answer: it depends entirely on the trigger category and the bank's internal timeline, neither of which we control. In our files, typical resolutions run from 2–4 weeks (documentation-type freezes) to 3–6 months (sanctions-screening false positives) to significantly longer where a judicial order is involved. The strategy memo tells you the realistic range for your specific situation at day seven, not a marketing number.

Is €2,400 the total cost? Will there be more?

The €2,400 is the fixed fee for the review: diagnosis, strategy memo, draft response, debrief call — complete, no hourly surprises. If, after reading the memo, you mandate us to represent you further (for example to handle correspondence with the bank directly), that is a separate engagement quoted upfront — fixed fee where possible, otherwise capped. You are never exposed to an open-ended meter.

What do you actually need from me to start?

Three things, roughly. One: every letter, email and notification from the bank, in full, with dates. Two: a short summary of your relationship with the bank (how long, what account type, what the money does) and any large transfers in the last 12 months. Three: a copy of your ID and proof of address so we can complete our own client due diligence. Everything you send is protected by Swiss professional secrecy from the first message.

My bank is in Russia / Ukraine / Belarus / a sanctioned jurisdiction. Can you help?

We work within Swiss and EU law. Where the bank, the counterparty, or the client themselves are subject to restrictive measures, our engagement is carefully scoped to remain compliant with those measures. Many cases involving high-risk jurisdictions are solvable — but the legal framework is stricter. We will tell you honestly, in the first conversation, whether your matter is one we can take on.

Read before you decide

Related Valken briefings.

If you'd like to understand the reasoning behind this service in plain language first, these short guides are a good place to start.

Banking20 Jan · 6 min

Can a Bank Freeze Your Account Because of an Interpol or Sanctions Match?

How compliance screening, sanctions lists, adverse media, PEP status and name matches can affect accounts — even when no one will explain why.

READ ARTICLE →
Databases14 Feb · 8 min

Is an Interpol Red Notice Public? Why You May Not Find Yourself Online

The public and non-public layers of international databases — and why banking decisions are often based on the ones you cannot see.

READ ARTICLE →
Interpol12 Mar · 7 min

Can I Be Stopped at the Airport Because of Interpol?

Airport alerts and bank alerts share more infrastructure than most people realise. If one happened, a check on the other is often wise.

READ ARTICLE →
The silence has a timeline

Seven days, one written strategy, and a path forward.

Every week you wait, the bank's internal decision calcifies a little more. The sooner a legally-framed response is on file, the more options you still have. Seven days from now — you can either still be guessing, or you can know.

Start a Bank Freeze Review Talk to Marc first
Reply within 4 hours Fixed fee from €2,400 Swiss professional secrecy Led by Marc Hofer · ex-compliance