Malaysia Air victims can move forward with terror lawsuit against Russian banks

A $300 "red herring" failed to sway a Manhattan federal judge last week. US District Judge Andrew Carter refused to dismiss a lawsuit in which the family of an American teenager claims two Russian banks enabled a Russian supremacist group to shoot down a Malaysia Airlines plane over Ukraine in 2014. The Antiterrorism Act, as you know, establishes a cause of action for US citizens against banks that provide material support to terror groups. But ATA plaintiffs still have to show that US courts have jurisdiction to hear their claims. That was a key issue in the lawsuit by the parents and sister of Quinn Schansman, who was 18 years old and traveling to a family vacation when he died aboard the Malaysian jet. In an amended complaint filed last October, Schansman's family alleged that two Russian banks – Sberbank of Russia PJSC and VTB Bank PJSC – funneled millions of dollars to the Donetsk People’s Republic, the Russian separatist group allegedly responsible for shooting down the Malaysain Air jet. The amended complaint asserted that New York had jurisdiction over the family’s case because Sberbank and VTB routinely and deliberately routed transfers to the separatist group through their New York-based correspondent accounts at US banks. The family’s lawyers at Jenner & Block were able to document two of those transactions in the amended complaint by obtaining early discovery from a court-ordered subpoena served on two of those US banks, Bank of America and Bank of New York Mellon. Story has full details.<br/>