• U.S. jury finds BNP Paribas aided Sudan atrocities, awards $20.5M

• Bank violated sanctions by serving Bashir regime, court rules

• Verdict may trigger more lawsuits from Sudanese exiles
  

A federal jury in Manhattan ruled on Friday, Oct. 17, 2025, that BNP Paribas helped Sudan’s government under Omar al-Bashir commit atrocities. The bank provided banking services in violation of U.S. sanctions.

The French lender was ordered to pay $20.5 million to three Sudanese refugees now living in the United States, who testified about the violence they suffered during ethnic cleansing campaigns in Darfur, South Sudan, and the Nuba Mountains. The verdict could open the door to thousands of similar lawsuits from Sudanese exiles.

“Our clients lost everything to a campaign of destruction fueled by U.S. dollars, that BNP Paribas facilitated and that should have been stopped,” said their lawyer Bobby DiCello, calling the ruling a symbolic victory after years of litigation.

BNP Paribas said it would appeal, arguing that the decision was based on a “based on a distortion of controlling Swiss law” and that the bank had been unable to present all evidence in its defense.

The trial, overseen by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, focused on whether the bank’s financial operations directly contributed to crimes committed by the Bashir regime. Earlier, the judge found that evidence linked the bank’s activities to abuses against civilians.

The verdict echoes a 2014 case in which BNP Paribas pleaded guilty and paid a record $8.97 billion fine for processing transactions for Sudanese, Iranian, and Cuban entities under U.S. sanctions. That penalty was widely viewed in France as excessive, as U.S. banks implicated in comparable scandals — including the subprime crisis and money laundering — faced lighter fines. Some French officials at the time saw the move as politically motivated.

The latest ruling comes amid renewed transatlantic tensions over economic and regulatory issues.