BNP Paribas faces trial over Sudan human rights abuses

A landmark trial has begun in the United States against French bank BNP Paribas, which is accused of financing human‑rights abuses by the Sudanese government under Omar Al‑Bashir. The class‑action lawsuit, originally filed in 2016, was revived by a federal appeals court in 2019 after being dismissed in 2018. It is scheduled to be heard in New York over the next ten weeks.

Lawyers representing more than 20,000 Sudanese refugees living in the United States argue that BNP Paribas provided financial support to Bashir’s regime in the 1990s and 2000s by giving it access to U.S. financial markets and “petrodollars.” This oil revenue allegedly enabled the government to increase spending on weapons used against its own population.

During his three decades in power, Omar Al‑Bashir presided over a deeply authoritarian rule marked by internal wars, including the conflict in Darfur. The Darfur war, which lasted from 2003 to 2005, resulted in roughly 200,000 civilian deaths and displaced two million people, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. The U.S. government recognized the Darfur genocide in 2004, and the International Criminal Court indicted Bashir in 2009 on charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture and rape. He was ousted in a 2019 coup.

BNP Paribas previously agreed to plead guilty and pay an $8.97 billion penalty to settle U.S. charges that it transferred billions of dollars for Sudanese, Iranian and Cuban entities subject to economic sanctions. However, the Sudanese victims of alleged atrocities—murder, mass rape and torture—received no compensation from that settlement.

The trial of BNP Paribas is a rare instance of a global bank being held accountable for its alleged role in human‑rights violations. The outcome may have significant implications for the banking industry and its involvement in such issues. As the proceedings continue over the next ten weeks, the international community, human‑rights groups and financial institutions are watching closely, according to reports from the Financial Times and Reuters.