Darfur Victims Allege BNP Paribas Helped Prop Up Sudan's Regime
September 26 2019 - 10:30AM
Dow Jones News
By Noemie Bisserbe
PARIS -- Human rights groups representing victims of the Darfur
genocide filed a criminal complaint Thursday against BNP Paribas SA
alleging the French bank provided financial services to Sudan that
propped up its regime.
Four years ago, Europe's largest listed bank by assets agreed to
pay nearly $9 billion and plead guilty to violating sanctions
against Sudan, Iran and Cuba, in an unprecedented settlement with
U.S. authorities. BNP Paribas acknowledged using regional banks
overseas to process more than $20 billion in financial transactions
linked to companies and government agencies in Sudan, when the
nation was engaged in what the U.S. and other countries labeled
genocide.
The genocide's Sudanese victims never received any damages,
however.
"To this day, they have been denied the possibility of justice,"
said Mossaad M. Ali, the executive director of African Center for
Justice and Peace Studies, a Sudanese human rights organization and
plaintiff in the case.
BNP Paribas said it wasn't aware of the complaint and that the
bank doesn't comment on judicial procedures.
The complaint threatens to reopen a difficult chapter for BNP
Paribas, which was the target of a U.S. investigation that threw
the Paris-based lender into unprecedented turmoil. Under French
law, prosecutors are required to act on the complaint by opening a
preliminary investigation. Such a probe can end in dismissal or
lead to the involvement of an investigating magistrate with the
power to file charges and seek fines.
The settlement with U.S. authorities, announced in June 2014,
marked the largest-ever fine paid by a bank for violations of U.S.
economic sanctions, and imposed other penalties rarely used against
financial institutions, including a year-long ban on the French
bank's ability to conduct certain U.S. dollar transactions.
"We deeply regret the past misconduct that led to this
settlement," BNP Paribas CEO Jean-Laurent Bonnafé said at the time.
"The failures that have come to light in the course of this
investigation run contrary to the principles on which BNP Paribas
has always sought to operate."
Prosecutors, in laying out their case against the bank in 2014,
said BNP essentially acted as the "Central Bank of Sudan in Dollar
Transactions" between 2002 and 2008.
"BNP allowed the government to function, pay its staff, military
and security forces, make purchases abroad, all while Sudan was a
pariah on the international scene for planning and committing
crimes in Darfur," said Patrick Baudouin, a lawyer for the
International Federation of Human Rights, another plaintiff, on
Thursday.
Write to Noemie Bisserbe at noemie.bisserbe@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 26, 2019 10:15 ET (14:15 GMT)
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