"BNP Paribas’s Sudan lawsuit is a warning for global banks", 11 September 2025

When BNP Paribas paid a mammoth $8.9bn penalty to US authorities in 2014, it might have looked like justice had been done on behalf of the victims of atrocities in Sudan’s western Darfur region. … But while a chunk of the BNP payout went to a compensation fund for US victims of terrorism, not a cent of it went to the people who were targeted by the violence in Darfur.

This ‘bellwether’ trial of three plaintiffs’ claims … could have a bearing on future claims by more than 20,000 members of the class action ... The case throws up questions of individual responsibility for collective wrongdoing that have fascinated moral philosophers from Plato to Derek Parfit ...

Over the next 10 weeks … jurors will need to decide whether BNP’s actions met the Swiss legal standard of being a ‘natural and adequate cause’ of the harms suffered by the people of Darfur....

The wider lawsuit presents a risk of compensatory damages that could prove significant, even by the standards of a bank with a market capitalisation of €89bn. ... An award of just $50,000 per person … would amount to more than $1bn.

An affirmative verdict in this trial would have few precedents. Perhaps the closest thing was a 2014 US finding of civil liability against Jordan’s Arab Bank over its provision of banking services to Hamas, though that was vacated on appeal for technical reasons. A civil case against Barclays and other banks, over their services for South Africa’s Apartheid-era government, was dismissed by US courts.”

Since this case over Sudan was first filed in 2016, BNP has been fighting a legal battle, arguing that it should not be heard in court. Just by ruling that the suit is serious enough to warrant a trial, the court in New York has sent an important signal to all banks and other companies doing business with governments involved in conflict. The financial risks of such work could prove more grave than previously thought …