Arab Bank wins US appeal to block thousands of terror damages claims

A US appeals court ruled Tuesday that non-US citizens could not sue the Jordan-based Arab Bank Plc for damages over its support of Palestinian terror groups who carried out attacks in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a 2013 ruling rejecting foreign lawsuits against the bank, which was being sued by American citizens amid claims it provided material support for the Hamas terror group during the period 1995-2005, Reuters reported.

In 2014 the bank was found guilty of supporting Hamas, which has carried out dozens of terror attacks against Israelis, killing hundreds, including some US citizens.

The three-panel court ruled the previous ruling “remains the law of this circuit” despite a later 2013 Supreme Court ruling that opened the possibility for foreign nationals to sue the bank for damages under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 law that is sometimes used as the basis for human rights abuse lawsuits.

Foreign victims had used the US Supreme Court ruling to argue that dismissing their claims was longer “good law.”

The Arab Bank said the ruling affected claims by more than 6,000 foreign plaintiffs.

Michael Elsner, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said he was disappointed by the decision and was looking at options to appeal.

In August 2015, Arab Bank reached a settlement over claims it shared responsibility for a wave of Hamas-sanctioned suicide bombings in Israel in the early 2000s that left several Americans dead or wounded.

Details of the deal between more than 300 plaintiffs and Arab Bank weren’t disclosed. It came three days before the damages phase of the case was scheduled to go to trial in federal court in Brooklyn.

The high-stakes legal offshoot of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict had pitted American victims of terror attacks in the early 2000s against an international bank with several branches in Gaza and the West Bank. The victims sued in 2004, accusing the bank of knowingly helping Hamas fund a “death and dismemberment benefit plan” for martyrs from the territories.

The jury heard Hamas experts and other plaintiff witnesses attempt to link extremists to Arab Bank accounts and detail how cash payments were funneled through the bank and into the hands of the families of suicide bombers. The defense argued that people the plaintiffs identified as Hamas operatives who did business with the bank weren’t on a terrorist watch lists compiled by authorities in the United States and other Western nations.

It marked the first time a bank had faced a trial under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows victims of US-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation. The US State Department designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997.

Agencies contributed to this report.