Intengan, Neri and Brawner

v.
Court of Appeals, et al.
G.R. No. 128996
February 15, 2002

Facts:

Citibank used as evidence and attached the dollar account details of the petitioners in a
criminal case it filed against its own officers for violation of the Corporation Code for
implementing a scheme which divests the bank of its client’s money. As a consequence, the
petitioners filed a criminal case against the officers of the Citibank who disclosed their account
details for violation of the Bank Secrecy Law. The Citibank Officers filed an appeal with the DOJ
Secretary who ruled in their favor and recommended the dismissal of the complaints. The
petitioners appealed with the CA, which upheld the dismissal of the case citing the exception
under the Bank Secrecy Law which allows the disclosure of accounts since the bank deposits
were material or relevant to the allegations in the complaint, which was necessary to
substantiate the allegations of the Citibank against its erring officers. Hence, this petition.

Issue: Whether or not there was violation of petitioner’s confidential bank deposits with the
private respondent’s disclosure of their accounts.

Ruling: No.

The accounts in question are U.S. dollar deposits; consequently, the applicable law
is not Republic Act No. 1405 but Republic Act (RA) No. 6426, known as the Foreign Currency
Deposit Act of the Philippines. Under this law, there is only a single exception to the secrecy of
foreign currency deposits, that is, disclosure is allowed only upon the written permission of the
depositor. A case for violation of Republic Act No. 6426 should have been the proper case
brought against private respondents. Private respondents Lim and Reyes admitted that they had
disclosed details of petitioner’s dollar deposits without the latters written permission. It does not
matter if that such disclosure was necessary to establish Citibank’s case against Dante L. Santos
and Marilou Genuino. Lim’s act of disclosing details of petitioner’s bank records regarding their
foreign currency deposits, with the authority of Reyes, would appear to belong to that species of
criminal acts punishable by special laws, called malum prohibitum.