"BNP Paribas found liable for atrocities in Sudan under Bashir regime", 20 October 2025

A New York jury has ruled that French banking giant BNP Paribas helped sustain the brutal regime of former Sudanese leader Omar al-Bashir, making it liable for atrocities committed under his rule.

After a three-week civil trial, the eight-member jury sided with three Sudanese-born plaintiffs – now American citizens – who accused the bank of indirectly fuelling the violence that tore their country apart.

The panel awarded them more than $20 million in damages.

For the victims’ lawyer, Bobby DiCello, the verdict marks a turning point in the long fight to hold corporations accountable for the human cost of their business decisions.

“The jury recognised that financial institutions cannot turn a blind eye to the consequences of their actions,” DiCello said. “Our clients lost everything to a campaign of destruction fuelled by US dollars – money that BNP Paribas helped move and that should have been stopped.”

During his closing arguments, DiCello accused the bank of having “supported ethnic cleansing” and “ruined the lives” of his clients...

The French lender was accused of providing letters of credit that allowed Bashir’s government to continue exporting oil, cotton, and other commodities – generating billions of dollars in revenue despite US sanctions.

A bank spokesperson told AFP the ruling “is clearly wrong” and said there were “very strong grounds to appeal the verdict, which is based on a distortion of controlling Swiss law and ignores important evidence the bank was not permitted to introduce.”...