BNP Paribas Ordered to Pay $21 Million in U.S. Jury Verdict Over Sudan Transactions

A federal jury in New York has issued a verdict of nearly $21 million against France’s largest bank, BNP Paribas S.A., for providing the Sudanese government access to the U.S. financial system while it carried out atrocities two decades ago. The plaintiffs, a woman and two men who are U.S. citizens and were displaced from Sudan, losing their homes and property, were awarded amounts ranging between $6.7 million and $7.3 million each following about four hours of jury deliberation on Friday.

In a pretrial memo filed on Aug. 28, the plaintiffs argued that BNP Paribas had helped the Sudanese government “carry out one of the most notorious campaigns of persecution in modern history.” Their lawyer, Adam Levitt, commented on Saturday: “They’re very gratified that steps on the road toward justice are being achieved, and they’re happy that the bank is being held responsible for its abhorrent conduct.”

A spokesperson for BNP Paribas responded via email, saying the verdict “is clearly wrong and there are very strong grounds to appeal the verdict,” adding that the bank had not been permitted to present important evidence. BNP Paribas maintained that Sudan had other sources of funding and that the company did not knowingly assist the government in human rights abuses under former President Omar al-Bashir.

The bank provided Sudanese authorities access to international money markets from at least 2002 to 2008, during a period in which up to 300,000 people were killed and 2.7 million displaced in the Darfur region. The litigation addresses government actions in multiple areas of the country. Al-Bashir is currently held in a military-run detention facility in northern Sudan, according to his lawyer, and faces charges of genocide and other crimes by the International Criminal Court, although he has not been transferred to The Hague to face trial. Sudan has been mired in civil war for more than two years, resulting in what aid organizations have described as one of the world’s worst displacement and hunger crises.

Lawyers for BNP Paribas argued that the bank bears no liability, stating in an August court filing: “Human rights abuses in Sudan did not start with BNPP, did not end when BNPP left Sudan, and were not caused by BNPP.” They further asserted, “BNP Paribas never participated in Sudanese military transactions in any way — it never financed Sudan’s purchase of arms, and there is no evidence linking any specific transaction to Plaintiffs’ injuries.”

Levitt described the case as a “bellwether trial” with findings he hopes to extend to other Sudanese refugees, 23,000 of whom are U.S. citizens and part of the class-action lawsuit. The BNP spokesperson noted that the verdict applied specifically to the three plaintiffs and “should not have broader application beyond this decision.”

This latest verdict comes a decade after BNP Paribas agreed in 2014 to pay nearly $9 billion to settle a separate case in New York, entering a guilty plea after acknowledging it had processed billions of dollars in transactions for clients in Sudan, as well as Cuba and Iran.

By fLEXI tEAM