Court Orders Bahrain to Pay Damages to Iran

Date: 24 November 2021 - 21:22

News ID: ۹۷۰۰۵

TEHRAN -- Bahrain has been ordered by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague to pay over 200 million euros in damages plus costs to two Iranian banks for the unlawful expropriation of their banking venture in Manama in an act of “political retribution”.
Iran’s largest lenders Bank Melli and Bank Saderat had sued the tiny Persian Gulf country before the international arbitration court in the Netherlands for confiscating nearly $1.3 billion worth of Iranian funds.
The funds belonged to Future Bank established as a joint venture between Bahrain’s Ahli United Bank and the two Iranian lenders in 2004 when Bahraini leaders were seeking to mend strained relations with their vastly larger neighbor to the north.
In January 2016, however, Bahrain’s central bank said it was taking steps to close down Future Bank after Manama cut diplomatic ties with Tehran, following its neighbor Saudi Arabia in severing relations with the Islamic Republic.
In July this year, Bahrain’s top court upheld a money-laundering verdict against Future Bank, the Central Bank of Iran and other Iranian banks. The ruling, issued in April 2018, included jail terms of up to 10 years for Future Bank officials and confiscation of funds.
Iranian officials rejected the allegations, asserting that Future Bank was a victim of an international political conflict, instigated by Persian Gulf neighbors and other countries seeking to isolate Iran.
In a written summation to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the kingdom had asserted that “Bahrain has never faced violations of this magnitude”.
The international tribunal, however, decided Monday that the Iranian institutions had been the target of “political retribution” and ordered Bahrain to pay over 200 million euros in damages plus costs to the banks, London-based Global Arbitration Review, a magazine dedicated to commercial arbitration, reported.
Iran’s former central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati confirmed the news on Wednesday, hailing it as a victory for the country.
“A legal victory: With the many years of effort we have had, an international arbitration tribunal has condemned the Bahraini government, which had expropriated Bank Melli and Bank Saderat of their venture in Future Bank of Bahrain with a political motivation and violation of international laws, to paying more than 200 million euros in damages and arbitration costs,” he tweeted.
The accusations against Iran emerged from an intensive investigation that began after Bahraini regulators formally closed Future Bank in 2015. The closure prompted Future Bank’s two Iranian shareholders to file a complaint in The Hague accusing Bahrain of improperly shutting down the bank and demanding the return of frozen assets.
Bahrain’s case was supported by U.S. officials who said the “findings” were troubling at a time when Future Bank was under intense scrutiny by American and Bahraini government agencies.
As part of its draconian sanctions regime, the U.S. has accused Bank Melli and Bank Saderat of helping finance Iran’s nuclear program and what it says is a terrorism network, in reference to resistance groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
The U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet is based in Bahrain where its majority-Shia population has close cultural and religious ties to Iran, but the kingdom’s ruling family has closely aligned itself with Saudi Arabia.
Since 2011, the Bahraini regime

has struggled to contain a resistance movement that includes peaceful dissenters. It has repeatedly accused Iran of backing the popular struggle against the monarchy, but its actions to stifle opposition groups have led to international criticism over its brutal crackdown on protests and other human rights violations.
One of the controversial allegations in the Future Bank case involved top Bahraini cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim. Bahraini officials criticized Future Bank for allowing him to make cash deposits in the bank. U.S. investigators, however, found that the cash consisted of tithes and alms collected from worshipers under a Shia tradition known as khums which is spent for charitable reasons to eliminate poverty and assist the most vulnerable classes.