BEIRUT: A London court has ordered two Lebanese banks to pay a depositor $4 million of his money locked in Lebanon’s crippled banking system by informal capital controls in place since a financial meltdown in 2019, the first such ruling in Britain.
The High Court of Justice, Queen’s Bench Division, ordered Bank Audi and SGBL to make the payments, amounting to about $1.1 million and $2.9 million respectively, to claimant Vatche Manoukian by March 4, a copy of the ruling seen by Reuters said.
“Bank Audi will abide by the ruling of the British court,” a Bank Audi official told Reuters.
SGBL did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lebanon’s financial system collapsed in 2019 after years of unsustainable financial policies, corruption and waste. Banks imposed tight controls on accounts, including a de facto ban on withdrawals of dollar-denominated deposits and limits on withdrawals in local currency.
These controls were never formalized with legislation and have been challenged in local and international courts, with mixed results.
A UK court in December ruled in favor of a Lebanese bank in a case brought by a depositor, considering the bank had discharged its debt to the plaintiff by issuing checks for the value of his deposits.
Many Lebanese banks have resorted to discharging dollar-denominated funds via banker’s cheques which cannot be cashed out in dollars and are instead sold on the market at about a quarter of their value.
Just a week prior, a French court had ruled in favor of a saver residing in France in a case she brought against a bank which had also issued checks for her account balance, saying the unilateral move by the bank, opposed by the claimant, meant the bank had not fulfilled its obligations.
UK court orders Lebanese banks to pay $4m to saver
https://arab.news/n4gb6
UK court orders Lebanese banks to pay $4m to saver
- The High Court of Justice ordered Bank Audi and SGBL to make the payments, amounting to about $1.1 million and $2.9 million respectively, to claimant Vatche Manoukian by March 4
- Bank Audi will abide by the ruling of the British court," a Bank Audi official told Reuters
Israeli fire kills 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two children, local hospital officials say
- The two boys were killed in separate incidents
- It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas
CAIRO: Israeli forces on Wednesday killed at least 11 Palestinians in Gaza, including two 13-year-old boys who were collecting firewood, three journalists and a woman, hospitals in the war-battered enclave said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment on any of the incidents.
The two boys were killed in separate incidents. In one strike, the 13-year-old, his father and a 22-year old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern side of the central Bureij refugee camp, according to officials from Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the central town of Deir Al-Balah, which received the bodies.
It wasn’t immediately clear whether the men had crossed into Israeli-controlled areas.
The other 13-year-old was shot and killed by troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, the Nasser hospital said, after receiving the body. In a footage circulated online, the boy’s father is seen weeping over his son’s body on a hospital bed.
Later Wednesday, an Israeli strike on the central town of Zahraa hit a vehicle carrying three Palestinian journalists who were filming a newly established displacement camp managed by an Egyptian government committee, said Mohammed Mansour, the committee’s spokesman.
The bodies of two journalists were taken to the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, while the third body was taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital.
Mansour said the journalists were documenting the committee’s work in the newly established camp in the Netzarim area in central Gaza. He said the strike occurred about 5 kilometers (3 miles) from the Israeli-controlled area.
He said the vehicle was known to the Israeli military as belonging to the Egyptian committee.
Video footage circulating online showed the charred, bombed-out vehicle by the roadside, smoke still rising from the wreckage, with debris scattered about.
Nasser Hospital officials also said they received the body of a Palestinian woman shot and killed by Israeli troops in the Muwasi area of the southern city of Khan Younis, which is not controlled by the military.
In a separate attack, three brothers were killed in a tank shelling in the Bureij camp, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, where the bodies were taken.
The deaths were the latest among Palestinians in Gaza since the ceasefire that stopped the war between Hamas and Israel went into effect in October.
More than 470 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire, according to the strip’s health ministry. At least 77 have been killed by Israeli gunfire near a ceasefire line that splits the territory between Israeli-held areas and most of Gaza’s Palestinian population, the ministry says.
The ministry, which is part of the Hamas-led government, maintains detailed casualty records that are seen as generally reliable by UN agencies and independent experts.
The ceasefire paused two years of war between Israel and Hamas militants and allowed a surge in humanitarian aid into Gaza, mainly food.
But residents say shortages of blankets and warm clothes remain, and there is little wood for fires. There’s been no central electricity in Gaza since the first few days of the war in 2023, and fuel for generators is scarce.
More than 100 children who have died since the start of the ceasefire in October — a figure that includes a 27-day-old girl who died from hypothermia over the weekend.
