US trial of BNP Paribas begins over alleged role in Sudan human rights abuses

This is a rare case of a global bank being brought before a jury for its supposed role in human rights violations.  

The trial of the French bank BNP Paribas began in the United States last week, over its alleged financing of the Sudanese government’s human rights abuses under the rule of Omar Al-Bashir. 

The class-action lawsuit against France's biggest bank was originally filed in 2016. The case was dismissed in 2018 but later revived by a federal appeals court in 2019. The suit is due to be heard in New York over the next 10 weeks. 

Lawyers representing over 20,000 Sudanese refugees now living in the US argue that BNP provided financial support to Bashir’s government in the 1990s and 2000s, by giving it access to US financial markets and to “petrodollars.”  

They say oil revenue allowed the regime to increase spending on weapons used against its population. 

During his three decades in power, Omar al-Bashir led a deeply authoritarian rule. His country was marred by several internal wars, including the war in Darfur. 

Between 2003 and 2005, the Sudanese government’s attacks on Darfur killed around 200,000 civilians and displaced two million people, according to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

The US government recognised the Darfur genocide in 2004.

The International Criminal Court indicted Bashir in 2009 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture and rape. He was ousted from power in a 2019 coup.

BNP Paribas in 2014 agreed to plead guilty and pay an $8.97 billion penalty to settle U.S. charges that it transferred billions of dollars for Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to economic sanctions.

The Sudanese victims of alleged atrocities including murder, mass rape and torture, did not receive any of the funds as compensation, according to Reuters.