Citi pushes back on New York lawsuit over fraud scams

By Jaiveer Shekhawat

(Reuters) -Citigroup's lawyers have urged U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken to dismiss a suit filed in January by Attorney General Letitia James, which accuses its Citibank unit of failing to reimburse customers who fall victim to online scammers, a spokesperson for Citigroup told Reuters on Tuesday.

The lawyers said the bank has robust and extensive procedures to protect consumers from being scammed into making fraudulent transfers.

"Citi closely follows all laws and regulations related to wire transfers and works extremely hard to prevent threats from affecting our clients and to assist them in recovering losses when possible," a company spokesperson told Reuters.

James, New York state's attorney general, sued Citibank unit in January, alleging that its lax security protocols allowed scammers to gain easy access to users' accounts and steal their deposits through unauthorized wire transfers.

She stated that "Citi's negligence" had cost customers in the state millions of dollars.

Citi urged a federal judge in April to dismiss the lawsuit, saying that the proper standard from the Uniform Commercial Code, which all U.S. states use, excuses banks from covering losses if in good faith they adopt commercially reasonable security measures to verify customer identities.

James' office did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment.

Bloomberg News first reported the development earlier on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Jaiveer Singh Shekhawat in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)

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