UK high court overturns sanctions on Iranian bank

Supreme Court rules order banning Bank Mellat from UK finance was ‘arbitrary and irrational’

LONDON (AP) — Britain’s Supreme Court has quashed sanctions against an Iranian bank penalized over its alleged links to Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Bank Mellat, a privately owned commercial bank, was seeking to overturn a 2009 order by the British Treasury barring it from operating in the country. That order, made under counterterrorism laws, shut the bank out of the British financial sector because it allegedly helped finance Tehran’s nuclear program.

The bank had denied the allegation and argued the order was unlawful.

Britain’s Supreme Court agreed, saying in a ruling Wednesday that the order was “arbitrary and irrational.”

The panel of justices also said their earlier decision to hear some evidence in the case in secret had been unnecessary.