Osen LLC in the News
BY GUEST COLUMNIST/CLEVELAND.COM
GREEN, Ohio -- Ten years ago, near the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq, terrorists murdered our son, Matthew, changing our lives forever. In the decade since, we have realized in the most difficult ways that we will never be able to repair the loss we suffered when he was killed. But we've also discovered that we can try to hold those responsible for his death accountable for what they did - and we will do everything in our power to do so.
The 200 people involved have filed the lawsuit under the US Anti-Terrorism Act. They want a jury trial and unspecified damages from the six banks, who are Barclays, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Standard Chartered and the Royal Bank of Scotland. “They were indifferent to the criminal purposes a state sponsor of terrorism puts their money to," claimed Gary Osen, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, to the Wall Street Journal.
EAST ST. LOUIS – Lawyers who for 12 years have pursued claims that banks helped Iran sponsor terror attacks have earned the high compliment of imitation.
John Driscoll of St. Louis copied their theory and many of their facts in a suit he filed against eight banks at U.S. district court in November.
Driscoll represents estates and families of 18 persons who died in Iraq, as well as veterans who survived attacks with injuries.
He seeks damages under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act against Deutsche Bank, HSBC Bank, Barclays Bank, Standard Chartered Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Credit Suisse, Bank Saderat and Commerzbank.
A lawsuit by families of U.S. citizens murdered by Mexican drug cartels brought against global bank HSBC under provisions of a powerful anti-terror law could have legs, even though the gangs themselves are not currently designated as terrorist groups, say legal experts.
The civil action, released earlier this month, argues that HSBC Holdings Plc should be held responsible under the US Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) for a series of deaths at the hands of brutal Mexican drug gangs because the institution admitted to laundering more than $880 million on behalf of the cartels as part of a $1.9 billion settlement in 2012 tied to broad anti-money laundering (AML) and sanctions failings. To read a copy of the plaintiff’s complaint, please click here.
Steven Vincent had just left a money exchange in the southern Iraqi city of Basra when a group of men in police uniforms drove up in a white truck and grabbed him and his translator. It was Aug. 2, 2005. Vincent, a freelance American journalist, had reported on the war for two-and-a-half years. British troops occupied Basra, but he operated without an embed arrangement. British and Iraqi authorities later found Vincent on the outskirts of the city shot dead. The Iraqi translator survived.
“Switched Off in Basra,” in which he described the infiltration of the local police by Iranian-backed Islamic extremists. “Steven was executed for what he wrote,” says his widow, Lisa Ramaci. She’s set up a foundation in his name that donates money to the families of Iraqis injured or killed because of their work with U.S. journalists. And Ramaci did something else. In November she joined a lawsuit on behalf of relatives of U.S. soldiers and civilians who’ve died in Iraq as a result of violence linked to Iranian-backed militias and terrorist groups.
The suit, filed in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y., seeks hundreds of millions of dollars not from death squads, whose members aren’t likely to show up with lawyers in tow. Instead, it targets five of the largest banks in the world: HSBC, Credit Suisse, Barclays, Standard Chartered, and Royal Bank of Scotland. “Defendants,” the suit declares, “committed acts of international terrorism.” The suit, known as Freeman v. HSBC, takes its name from lead plaintiff Charlotte Freeman, whose husband, Brian, an Army captain, died in a Jan. 20, 2007, attack by Iranian-trained militants in Karbala, Iraq.
A five-car convoy opened fire on a compound 30 miles south of Baghdad, a sneak attack that killed four American soldiers in one of the deadliest days in the Iraq war. A roadside bomb struck a United States military vehicle, severing part of a soldier’s head. And a militant group kidnapped and killed an American journalist, dumping him in the street after firing three shots into his chest.
Those acts of terrorism occurred a world away from Wall Street at the height of the Iraq war. But they now underpin a lawsuit against some of the world’s biggest banks, injecting a human element into the complex and shadowy world of international finance.
Suit Alleges Institutions Helped Iran Move Millions of Dollars to Groups Targeting GIs in Iraq - More than 200 veterans and their families filed a lawsuit Monday accusing six major banks of helping Iran move tens of millions of dollars to groups targeting U.S. soldiers in Iraq during the war.
The families of dozens of American soldiers killed or wounded in Iraq are suing five international banks of conspiring with Iran to evade U.S. sanctions and provide material support to terrorist groups. They’re represented by lawyer Gary Oser, who recently won a jury verdict that found Arab Bank liable for 24 Hezbollah terrorist attacks in Israel.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Wounded U.S. veterans and family members of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq sued five European banks on Monday, seeking to hold them responsible for shootings and roadside bombings because they allegedly processed Iranian money that paid for the attacks.
Barclays Plc (BARC) and HSBC Holdings Plc were among six banks sued by U.S. soldiers and their relatives over claims they helped Iran process billions of dollars in transactions and support terrorists who attacked them while serving in Iraq.
Lenders including Standard Chartered Bank (STAN), Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Royal Bank of Scotland NV allegedly conspired with Iran and its banks to withhold data from transactions, enabling them to circumvent monitoring by U.S. regulators, according to a complaint filed today in Brooklyn, New York, federal court. The scheme dates to 1987, the soldiers claim.
