(Reuters) – Russian state-owned lender Sberbank on Thursday said it disagreed with a U.S. court’s decision to reject the bank’s right to sovereign immunity in a case brought by the family of a victim of the 2014 MH17 airline disaster.
Sberbank said it would continue to fight the case.
The U.S. court ruled on Tuesday that the family of American Quinn Schansman, who was 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.
“We have studied the judgement in our appeal, which took the U.S. Court of Appeals more than 14 months to issue,” Sberbank said. “Sberbank does not agree with it and will continue to defend its interests in this case.”
In a 3-0 decision, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said 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 (DPR).
Schansman was 18 when he boarded the flight to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam on July 17, 2014, for a planned family vacation. The plane 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.
(Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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