The European Commission was right to allow Clearstream Banking AG, a unit of Deutsche Boerse, to comply with US sanctions on Iran and therefore interrupt payments to an Tehran-controlled holding, the European Union’s General Court said on Wednesday.
The Court added that the plaintiff IFIC Holding AG is a German company whose shares are held indirectly by the Iranian State and which itself has shareholdings in various German undertakings.
“The Commission did not err in its assessment by not taking into account the applicant’s interests or by failing to examine whether less onerous alternatives existed,” the Court said.
In August 2020, judgment creditors of Iran filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, seeking turnover of Iranian assets, they said belonged to the Central Bank of Iran, Bank Markazi.
At the time, Clearstream said it considers any claims for damages against it in this context to be unfounded and will take all necessary and appropriate measures to decisively defeat such claims.
For several years, US authorities had targeted Clearstream, looking at possible violations of money laundering and Iran sanctions laws.
Deutsche Boerse had denied wrongdoing.
Early in 2018, Iran’s central bank, Bank Markazi, has filed a suit in Luxembourg against Deutsche Boerse’s Clearstream unit seeking to recover $4.9 billion in assets plus interest.
The assets were frozen on suspicion of terror financing and as compensation for the victims of the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Iranian assets also remain frozen in connection with a court case over the bombing of a US Marine barracks in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 241 Americans.
In April 2020, a Luxembourg court said it blocked a long-running US request to transfer $1.6 billion in Iranian assets to victims of the September 11 attacks.
However, the statement added that the ruling was not final and could be appealed at Luxembourg’s highest court.
