A Study On The Civil Liability For Fraudulent Savings Deposit Withdrawals

Disputes in savings deposit contracts are quite common among contract disputes and most of these disputes are savings deposit withdrawals fraudulently. In other word, deposits are reshuffled. However, they are regarded as the normal withdrawals by the bank and other financial institutions and are paid normally. Regarding the fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals, depositors claim that the bank and other financial institutions fail to perform the duty of payment review so that they should be liable for paying again while the financial institutions hold the point that they have formally fulfilled the duty of payment review and appropriately execute the deposit contract. In that case, even payment errors occur, they shall not bear civil liability on fraudulent cash withdrawals owing to exemptions.In this thesis, the author applies relevant principles in civil law and contract law and Contract Liability Theory to analyze and explore the legal responsibility of fraudulently savings deposit withdrawals. This paper falls into three chapters besides the Introduction and Conclusion. In the first chapter, the foundation of determining legal responsibility of fraudulently savings deposit withdrawals is discussed. In the second chapter, the basis of legal responsibility is illustrated and in the last chapter, relief of legal responsibility is pointed out.In judicial practices, owing to lack and imperfection of legislation, there isn't a unified recognition on who shall be responsible for the civil liability to the end and how to undertake the responsibility of fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals happened at present. In that case, undertaking the legal liability becomes controversial. Therefore, fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals and legal liability undertaking turn out to be the focus discussed in theory and judicial practices. In this thesis, the nature of deposit contract is analyzed in order to explore who should undertake the legal responsibility of fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals, the bank or other financial institutions, or depositors themselves? After analyzing and evaluating relevant legal provisions to the nature of deposit contract and four representative academic views, the author concludes that deposit contract is namely the consumer credit contract. Depositors deposit their money into the bank and other financial institutions. In this case, they lose the possession and ownership of their money. However, they obtain the claims based on deposit contract. In addition, the bank gets the ownership and possesses depositors' money. Therefore, fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals refer to the violation of bank's ownership of the deposit caused by fraudulent withdrawals, resulting in the loss of the bank. In such circumstance, the depositors are able to require the bank to pay the deposit again according to their claims.Only when the bank breaches obligations can responsibility be undertaken by the bank. In this thesis, by discussion on obligation of payment review of the bank and other financial institutions in deposit contract, and analysis on the nature of payment review of the bank, payment errors and legal results of improper payments, the author tries to make it clear whether the bank should take the contractual liability or the liability for tort. The author also discusses on the obligations of payment review of the bank, including the means of payment review, the content of payment review, gross negligence of bank payment review, and self relief means of depositors. Also by defining the depositor's burden of proof for a typical lawsuit of deposit falsely claiming, the author clarifies the ground and remedy for the legal responsibility. The author proposes that the causal relationship between illegal behavior and payment errors should be taken into consideration when making specific judgment on gross negligence of the bank. Although the bank breaches of provisions of laws, it cannot constitute a gross negligence for those have not directly caused the payment errors. The author also states two conditions for exempting responsibility of payment errors made by the bank, the paying for prospective occupant of claims and the misbehavior of the creditor. The above mentioned two origins for exempting the bank's responsibility do not exist independently. In a certain dispute, the origins of the two may exist at the same time. Firstly, it should be taken into consideration that whether the bank has made the payment to prospective occupant of claims. If so, the bank should be fully exempted from liabilities; if not, then do the study to check whether the depositor can be proved wrongly operated. If the depositor does not follow the standard operation procedure, then the responsibility for the bank to pay again should be appropriately deducted or exempted.Through comprehensive discussion and analysis, the author claims that in disputes on fraudulent savings deposit withdrawals, the liability of payment review the bank should undertake is formal examination obligation. The bank breaches the obligation of payment review, resulting in the occurrence of payment mistakes, and it should be liable for paying again as long as there is no exemption. However, if the bank could prove fraudulent withdrawal is due to creditors' own fault and it only pays to quasi possessors, it will acquire exemption and won't undertake or undertake less responsibility of payment. Finally, the author sincerely hopes that this thesis could make contribute a lot to the staff engaged in judicial practices and financial fields.