A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday threw out a $1.68 billion judgment against Iran's central bank that had been won by family members of troops killed and injured in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said a lower court judge should have addressed questions of state law before ruling against Bank Markazi and Luxembourg intermediary Clearstream Banking, a unit of Deutsche Boerse
In a 3-0 decision, the panel also rejected a claim that a 2019 federal law, opens new tab designed to make it easier to seize Iranian assets held outside the United States waived Bank Markazi's sovereign immunity.
That law "neither abrogates Bank Markazi's jurisdictional immunity nor provides an independent grant of subject matter jurisdiction," Circuit Judge Robert Sack wrote.
The court returned the case to U.S. District Loretta Preska in Manhattan to address state law questions in the 11-year-old case, and whether the case can proceed at all in Bank Markazi's absence.
Bombing victims sought to hold Iran liable for providing material support for the Oct. 23, 1983, suicide attack that killed 241 U.S. service members, by seizing bond proceeds held by Clearstream in a blocked account on Bank Markazi's behalf.
Bank Markazi claimed immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally shields foreign governments from liability in U.S. courts.
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