## Facts

- Foreign-national plaintiffs (victims, estates, and family members) alleged they were injured or killed in terrorist attacks in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza during the Second Intifada.
- Plaintiffs sued Arab Bank, PLC, a Jordanian bank with a New York branch, under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350.
- Plaintiffs alleged the bank knowingly provided financial services that materially supported terrorist organizations and terrorist-affiliated individuals and entities, including by maintaining accounts and processing transactions.
- Plaintiffs alleged the bank processed payments to families of “martyrs” and to prisoners through accounts opened for those beneficiaries, funded in part by a Saudi-based committee.
- Plaintiffs alleged many transfers were routed through the bank’s New York branch to clear U.S.-dollar transactions and facilitate currency conversion.
- The attacks, victims’ injuries, and deaths occurred outside the United States, and plaintiffs were not U.S. citizens.

## Issues

1. Whether the ATS claims “touch and concern” the United States with sufficient force to overcome the presumption against extraterritoriality for claims based on foreign injuries and predominantly foreign conduct.
2. Whether alleged U.S.-based dollar-clearing and related New York banking activity constituted sufficiently substantial domestic conduct, rather than merely ancillary or routine transactions, to permit ATS jurisdiction.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of the ATS claims.
- The court held the claims were impermissibly extraterritorial under the ATS because the relevant conduct and injuries were foreign.
- The court concluded that routing transactions through New York for U.S.-dollar clearing was insufficient to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality.

## Legal Principles

- The ATS is subject to a presumption against extraterritorial application; claims based on conduct occurring abroad are barred unless they “touch and concern” the United States with sufficient force to overcome that presumption.
- Predominantly foreign injuries and foreign core conduct are not made domestic in character by limited U.S. contacts.
- Routine or ancillary U.S. financial activity (including correspondent banking and U.S.-dollar clearing) generally does not, without more, supply the domestic nexus required to proceed under the ATS.
- Extraterritoriality limits are informed by separation-of-powers and foreign-relations concerns, including the risk of diplomatic friction from adjudicating disputes centered abroad.

## Conclusion

The court held that foreign plaintiffs could not proceed under the ATS against a foreign bank for foreign terrorist attacks where the alleged U.S. connection consisted mainly of ordinary U.S.-dollar clearing through a New York branch, because the claims remained fundamentally extraterritorial after Kiobel.


In re Arab Bank, PLC Alien Tort Statute Litig., 808 F.3d 144 (2d Cir. 2015)