"Accidental Americans" have been denied bank account openings in France, due to a restrictive US law for foreign banks.

More than 300 "accidental Americans", nationals of the United States but not related, have filed a complaint against several banks online, including Boursorama and ING, for refusal to open an account, announced Wednesday their lawyer . "Their complaint shows that the refusals to open accounts that were opposed by these banks result from the mere fact of their US nationality," said their lawyer, Antoine Vey, in a statement.

A binding law for banks

A total of 306 people associated themselves with this complaint to the public prosecutor of Paris. The United States adopted in 2010 the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), designed to combat tax evasion. This law, which entered into force in 2014, allows the US tax administration to automatically collect information from foreign banks about their US customers. In the event of a refusal, banks are liable to penalties of up to 30% of their financial flows with the United States.

But identifying all US and bi-national clients has become a challenge for banks. Unable to provide the US tax identification number of these customers, banks stumble on the absence of response and on the record of "accidental Americans". In practice, this device has directly influenced the lives of a number of French, and more broadly European, who although no longer related to the United States, remain considered US taxpayers by the mere fact of their birth on the American territory, since the United States applies the law of the soil. However, it is very difficult for these people to give up this American nationality, as the procedure is long and very expensive.

Discriminatory practices

"Following the promulgation of this law (FATCA, Ed), several 'accidental Americans' found that French banks suddenly refused to allow them to access their services, setting up a system to identify' signs of Americanity, "said Vey in the statement. "Seized of this situation, the Defender of Rights considered that these practices were discriminatory, yet no action has been taken at the level of the banks to put an end to this situation," he adds. According to the European Banking Federation (EBF), more than 300,000 people are affected in the European Union.