Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Same entity, different location. Seems to me you can't do business with terrorists in one place and expect to pretend you're in the clear and able to do business with the West elsewhere. This article calls the lawsuit "innovative." Canadians in Israel suing Lebanese-Canadian bank
The innovative lawsuit, filed in Montreal this month, says properties of the plaintiffs were hit by rockets during the 2006 Middle East conflict. The claim argues the plaintiffs should be compensated because LCB was "grossly negligent" by allowing Hezbollah to bank.
Tina al-Hattouni, the bank's Montreal-based representative, told CTV.ca that the lawsuit's allegations are false...
...The Canadian-Israeli plaintiffs say that their homes were destroyed as Hezbollah rockets rained down. Today, they say they suffer lingering "traumatic episodes and psychological stress." One woman claims she nearly lost her baby during the attacks.
The LCB, "was originally the Lebanese branch of the Royal Bank of Canada, which transformed into the LCB in 1988," the claim says. The suit contends the bank's Montreal branch, its sole office outside of Lebanon, is an "integral part," of the bank and subject to all federal Canadian laws.
The lawsuit claims the rocket assaults were "terrorist attacks as defined in section 83.01 of the Criminal Code" of Canada. (The 2001 Anti-Terrorism act allows prosecutions for acts of terrorism that take place outside of Canada.)...
Seems to me what we have here is a war situation where the nation-states themselves aren't in a hot war state, so the citizens themselves are left to fight it on their own with the means at their disposal -- not guns, but lawsuits. The various Executives and Legislatures have provided the means of prosecution of the conflict through legisation and effectively outsourced the fight to the citizenry and the courts -- a longer-term but less bloody war of attrition.
And of course, one could also think "innovatively" and ponder the possible liability that media sources risk by employing people who turn out to have ties to terror groups...hmmm...
[h/t: Richard Landes]
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Suing Hizballah's Bank in Canada.
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This looks to be another wing of the Candian effort we posted about last week: 85 Victims of Hizbollah Terrorist Rocket Attacks File Unprecedented Civil Suit Against American Express Bank in New York Court Eighty five American, Israeli and Canadian... Read More
