Federal Judge Loretta Preska in New York ordered the Central Bank of Iran and a European intermediary today, Wednesday, to pay $1.68 billion to the families of soldiers killed in a car bombing that targeted U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983. The judge stated that a federal law enacted in 2019 stripped the Central Bank of Iran of its sovereign immunity from the lawsuit seeking to enforce a judgment against Iran for providing material support to the attackers.
Lawyers for both parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The bombing at the Marine barracks resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. servicemen on October 23, 1983. A federal court issued a judgment in favor of the victims and their families requiring Iran to pay $2.65 billion in 2007 due to the attack. Six years later, families sought to obtain proceeds from bonds allegedly owned by the Central Bank of Iran, managed by Clearstream Banking, a Luxembourg-based subsidiary of Deutsche Börse AG, to partially satisfy the court ruling.
The Central Bank of Iran asserted that the lawsuit is not permissible under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which generally protects foreign governments from legal liability in U.S. courts. In January 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a lower court ruling favoring the families and ordered the case to be reconsidered in light of the new law enacted the previous month under the National Defense Authorization Act. Preska noted that the 2019 law allows U.S. courts to permit the seizure of assets located outside the country to satisfy judgments against Iran in terrorism cases, "notwithstanding" other laws, such as the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, that confer immunity.
A court in Luxembourg ordered Clearstream in 2021 not to transfer the funds until a court in that country recognizes the U.S. judgment, and Clearstream appealed the decision.
