BNP Paribas was ordered by a US judge on Thursday to face a lawsuit accusing the French bank of helping Sudan's government commit genocide between 1997 and 2011 by providing banking services that violated American sanctions.
USÂ District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan found "too many facts" showing a relationship between BNP Paribas' financing and human rights abuses perpetrated by the government.
He called it premature to decide whether it was reasonable to hold the bank responsible for causing some of those abuses, which according to the plaintiffs included murder, mass rape and torture, or whether it could have foreseen them.
The proposed class action was brought by USÂ residents who had fled non-Arab indigenous black African communities in South Sudan, Darfur, and the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan. They are seeking unspecified damages.
A spokesman for BNP Paribas declined to comment.
The bank had in 2014 agreed to plead guilty and pay an $8.97 billion penalty to settle US charges it transferred billions of dollars for Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to economic sanctions.
While many banks have been accused of aiding in human rights abuses by providing banking services, BNP Paribas' guilty plea was the first by a global bank to large-scale violations of US economic sanctions, the Department of Justice said at the time.
Hellerstein said the bank's admission that its employees recognized its role in giving Sudanese entities access to the USÂ banking system meant it could not now argue differently.
