According to a London court order, on Monday, requiring two Lebanon-based banks, Bank Audi and SGBL, to pay British-Armenian businessman $4 million of his deposit, Bank Audi said on Wednesday that this lawsuit will result in other depositors losing out their savings.
The British court ordered, on February 28, Bank Audi and SGBL to pay the full deposit of about $4 million to Vatche Manoukian by March 4, 2022.
Bank Audi said, “The profusion of lawsuits filed by depositors against banks before Lebanese and foreign jurisdictions is a direct consequence of the mismanagement of the crisis since October 2019, and more specifically the failure to enact a most needed capital control law”.
Bank Audi is considering its options to appeal the court decision, although it declared its intention to comply.
It said that this order means that wealthy depositors in the United Kingdom can get the remaining of their deposits, but it “will significantly reduce the money available to the other depositors.”
Since the end of 2019, bank customers are blocked out from transferring their own money in foreign currencies abroad despite that the ongoing capital control is still not lawfully approved by the Lebanese state.
