
On September 25, 2019, the Southern District of New York dismissed a complaint brought by victims of rocket attacks in Israel perpetrated in 2006 by Hizbollah, operating in Lebanon. Kaplan v. Lebanese Canadian Bank, SAL, Civ. No. 08 Civ. 7253, 2019 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 162505 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 20, 2019). The Complaint was brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 18 USC 2333 (“ATA”). In it, the Plaintiffs alleged that the Lebanese Canadian Bank, SAL (“LCB”) provided banking services to five members of Hizbollah (“Hizbollah affiliates”), and by doing so, they materially supported an act of international terrorism.
Specifically, the Complaint alleged, among other things, that LCB failed to take certain due diligence measures, including reviewing public sources, and as a result continued to bank with members of Hizbollah. According to the Complaint, the bank’s customers’ afficilation with Hizbollah was “notorious public knowledge” due to news articles, reports, and Hizbollah’s own media sources. The Plaintiffs alleged that, even if the bank did not have actual knowledge, the bank at least should have known because it had a duty to perform due diligence on its customers, monitor and report suspicious or illegal banking activities, and not provide banking services to terrorist organizations.
Although the Kaplan case arises in the context of international terrorism and potential liability under the ATA, its analysis and conclusions can apply to more mundane state law tort claims against financial institutions by investors or consumers defrauded by the institution’s (former) customers. These claims often attempt to bootstrap allegations that a bank knew should have known about the customer’s fraud scheme due to the bank’s anti-money laundering (AML) monitoring and reporting obligations under the Bank Secrecy Act (“BSA”). As we have blogged, courts hold that evidence of an imperfect AML program and potential red flags about a customer fall short of the high bar required to sustain a claim for aiding and abetting a fraud or other tort against third party non-customers.