US Supreme Court Rejects Turkish Halkbank Arguments in Iran Case

The US Supreme Court has rejected a Turkish bank’s main arguments for avoiding prosecution on charges it helped Iran evade US sanctions, but the court sent the case back for additional review, newswires said.

Halkbank, a bank owned by Turkey, had argued that a federal law, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, gave foreign states absolute immunity from criminal prosecution in US courts. It also said federal courts don’t have jurisdiction to oversee the case.

“We disagree with Halkbank on both points,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote last week for himself and six of his eight colleagues.

Still, Kavanaugh said the case should go back to a lower court for further review. He said the lower court “did not fully consider the various arguments regarding common-law immunity that the parties press in this court.”

The federal government claimed the bank “participated in the largest-known conspiracy to evade the United States’ economic sanctions on Iran,” laundering billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil and natural gas proceeds. The government claims that working with an Iranian-Turkish businessman, the bank created ways for Iran to access the funds — including shipments of gold and fake food shipments. The government also claimed that the schemes “freed up approximately US$20 billion of restricted Iranian funds.” - Financial Tribune