The bank assisted by providing banking services that violated American sanctions. The federal jury in Manhattan ordered BNP Paribas to pay a combined $20.5 million to three Sudanese plaintiffs who testified about human rights abuses perpetrated under former President Omar al-Bashir’s rule.
Lawyers for the three plaintiffs, who now reside in the US said the verdict now opens the door for over 20 000 refugees in the US to seek billions of Dollars in damages from the French bank. The trial focused on whether BNP Paribas’s financial services were a “natural and adequate cause” of the harm suffered by survivors of ethnic cleansing and mass violence.
–Reuters–
