Family of American killed on Malaysian Airlines flight can sue Russian bank, US court rules

The family of an American killed when a Malaysian Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine in 2014 can sue Russia's largest bank for allegedly providing money transfers to a group blamed for downing the plane, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Tuesday. In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said state-controlled Sberbank was not entitled to sovereign immunity, after being accused of using the U.S. banking system to funnel donor money to the Russia-backed separatist group Donetsk People's Republic. A U.S.-based lawyer for Sberbank had no immediate comment. Sberbank was not immediately available for comment after business hours in Moscow. The case was brought by the family of Quinn Schansman, who was 18 when he boarded Malaysian flight MH17 to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam on July 17, 2014, for a planned family vacation. The flight was shot down over DPR-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile, killing all 298 people on board. Russia has denied involvement. Ukraine had previously declared the DPR a terrorist organization, while the United States had imposed sanctions on the group. Schansman's family sued Sberbank, another Russian bank and two U.S. money transfer companies in April 2019, saying they should be liable for doing business with the DPR. A year later, Russia's Ministry of Finance bought a majority stake in Sberbank from the country's central bank.<br/>