The court in the United States decided that the family of the American who died on board the plane Malaysia Airlines in the sky over Donbass in 2014, can sue the Russian bank Sberbank. This UNN reports with reference to DW.
Details
Judge Joseph Bianco in the United States has ruled that Sberbank of Russia financed the so-called "DNR" militants and, therefore, can be considered an accomplice of terrorists, so its status as a state bank of Russia does not entitle it to sovereign immunity. He announced this decision after authorizing the prosecution of Russia's largest bank against the family of an American who died in the crash of flight MH17 in Donbass in 2014.
The lawsuit against Sberbank was filed in April 2019 by the family of Quinn Shansman, who was 18 at the time of his death. He was on Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur. The family accused the bank of using the US banking system to transfer donations to fighters of the so-called "DNR".
Sberbank challenged the suit, arguing that it was a state-owned organization and could not be sued in other countries. But a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan ruled that the principle of sovereign immunity did not apply to Sberbank in this case.
As Joseph Bianco explained in the decision, the money transfers made by Sberbank were "typical commercial activities", so it does not fall under the protection of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Thus, Sberbank carried out commercial transactions through the US banking system in favor of an organization that is considered terrorist in Ukraine and sanctioned in the USA.
Less than a year after the Shansman family filed their lawsuit - in early 2020 - the Russian government used money from the National Welfare Fund to acquire a controlling stake in Sberbank from the Bank of Russia. Sberbank insisted in court that, as a state-owned organization or agent, it was unjusticiable in other jurisdictions. Sberbank also pointed out that the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act provides immunity regardless of when the bank came under state control, and commercial activities do not provide grounds for an exception.
But Judge Bianco pointed out that the FSIA fully governs the issue of sovereign immunity in civil cases (which is the case of Shansmans v. Sberbank) and its provisions were not overridden by the Anti-Terrorism Act. Accepting Sberbank's position would negate the intent of the U.S. Congress to give civil plaintiffs the broadest possible legal basis to sue organizations that provide material support to foreigners engaged in terrorist activities against the United States, Bianco pointed out.
Recall
On July 17, 2014, a missile hit a Boeing on flight MH17 in the skies above Donbass. None of the 298 people on board survived. In November 2022, a court in The Hague sentenced Russian citizens Igor Girkin and Sergei Dubinsky, as well as Ukrainian citizen Leonid Kharchenko, to life imprisonment for their role in the crash of the Malaysian Boeing 777.
The EU issued a statement calling on the Russian Federation to take responsibility and cooperate in the administration of justice.