Saturday, August 25, 2012

Tweak to U.S. bill on Iran sanctions opens door to damages


One way to win a court case is to get the United States Congress to change the rules of the game midstream.
A little-noticed provision tucked into the latest Iran sanctions bill may have done just that for American victims of a 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
The sanctions bill, signed by President Barack Obama on August 10, set out additional penalties against Tehran to curb the country's nuclear ambitions.
The bill also specifically disarms claims the Central Bank of Iran has made in a legal battle in federal court in Manhattan over $1.75 billion in securities frozen in a New York bank account that the central bank says it owns.
The plaintiffs in that case are trying to get Tehran, through the Central Bank of Iran, to pay damages for Iran's suspected role in helping Hezbollah carry out the barracks attack during the civil war in Lebanon.
The $1.75 billion was uncovered by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2008 and sits in a New York branch of Citibank, part of Citigroup. Treasury says the money is effectively Iranian funds.
The Beirut plaintiffs' lawsuit, filed in 2010, argues that the funds should go toward paying a $2.65 billion damages award they obtained against Iran in 2007 and have so far been unable to collect.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/24/us-usa-iran-idUSBRE87N0TM20120824

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