TEHRAN — Two leading Iranian banks have
welcomed a decision by a Hague-based tribunal to order Bahrain to pay them more
than $270 million in compensation for its 2015 closure of a bank they had supported.
اضافة اعلان
The November 9 ruling from the
Permanent Court of Arbitration found that reporting failures that Bahrain alleged showed
Future Bank was a front for sanctions-busting were insufficient grounds for
effectively expropriating the Iranian banks' money.
It found that Bahrain's motives had been
primarily political, reflecting Gulf Arab anger at the nuclear agreement world
powers had struck with Iran a few weeks earlier.
The private award was not published by the
tribunal but has been disclosed by the Iranian banks which sought its
arbitration.
Reacting to the award's disclosure, Bahrain
charged that it contained "serious procedural, evidential and legal
deficiencies.”
Even though the tribunal's awards are
generally final, Bahrain vowed to mount an appeal through the Dutch courts.
Iran's state-owned
Bank Melli and
Bank Saderat sought arbitration in the case in 2017, citing the terms of an
investment agreement signed by Tehran and Manama at a time of less strained
relations in 2002.
The banks' lead counsel Hamid Gharavi said
he was "very satisfied with the tribunal's decision, because of the size
of the compensation, the finding that international law has been violated, and
the court's conclusion that the expropriation was not based on alleged breaches
by Future Bank but motivated by a deliberately political agenda in the context
of tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia".
Tensions over nuclear deal
Future Bank was set up in Bahrain with tacit
Saudi blessing in 2004 as a joint venture between the two Iranian banks and
Bahrain's Ahli United Bank.
Gharavi said the bank had been a success,
right up to its abrupt closure by the Bahraini authorities. In 2014, the bank
had become the kingdom's largest and the seventh largest in the six Gulf Arab
states.
But everything had changed with the
announcement of the Iran nuclear agreement, which was fiercely opposed by Saudi
Arabia and its allies, on April 2, 2015.
Bahrain confiscated Iranian assets worth
more than $1 billion and placed both Future Bank and the local branch of Iran
Insurance Company under administration on April 30.
"We are going to implement the arbitral
award, which is final and legally binding," Gharavi said.
"Bahrain will not be able to challenge
it by alleging what it claims are procedural flaws."
Gharavi said the case created a precedent
for other Iranian institutions to seek compensation for their losses from the
Bahraini authorities.
"We are going to complete other
arbitration proceedings against Bahrain, including those of the central bank,
unless Bahrain decides to compensate the Iranian institutions," he said.
A Bahraini government spokesperson said
Future Bank had been "the largest money-laundering case in Bahraini
history" and the kingdom's authorities had been right to take action.
"Future Bank, under Iranian banks'
control, contravened US and EU sanctions on multiple transactions, engaged in
wire-stripping, operated a hidden international payments mechanism for several
years and facilitated the evasion of UN sanctions placed on Iran," the
spokesperson said.
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