A court in the United States has permitted the lawsuit against the Russian Sberbank regarding the MH17 flight disaster, which was shot down over Donbas in 2014. The bank is accused of financing the militants of the "DPR" group.
According to Reuters, the decision was made on February 4 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in Manhattan. The court ruled that Sberbank, which is controlled by Russia, cannot invoke sovereign immunity in light of allegations that it used the U.S. banking system to transfer funds to Russian-backed separatists.
This ruling allows for the legal pursuit of Russia's largest bank by the family of American Quinn Shansman, who lost his life in the Malaysia Airlines plane crash. In April 2019, his family filed a lawsuit accusing the bank of facilitating the financing of militants. Shansman, who was 18 years old, was on board flight MH17, which was en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.
Sberbank attempted to contest the lawsuit, citing its status as a state entity; however, three appellate judges determined that the principle of sovereign immunity does not apply in this case.