Ropes & Gray Exposes Forgery to Defeat Allegations that Qatar National Bank Financed Terrorism in Syria

Ropes & Gray recently secured a complete and total victory for Qatar National Bank (Q.P.S.C.) (QNB) in an action under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act falsely accusing QNB of facilitating a purported $800,000 wire transfer to an individual who later joined ISIS and ordered the execution of an American journalist (see Sotloff v. Qatar National Bank, et al., 22-cv-80726-DMM (S.D. Fla.)). 

Litigation & enforcement partners Michael McGovern and Doug Hallward-Driemeier led a cross-practice team to demonstrate that the supposed “wire confirmation printout” of the alleged wire transfer was a forgery.  Among other things, the team produced evidence that the international wire transfer code that appeared on the face of the supposed “wire confirmation printout” did not exist until more than four years after the date of the alleged wire transfer.    

Confronted with this and other evidence of the forgery, plaintiffs agreed to jointly move with QNB to dismiss the case with prejudice and to vacate the Court’s prior opinion denying QNB’s motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim given the complete lack of a factual basis supporting the underlying claims. The Court granted the motion, vacating its earlier ruling and dismissing all of plaintiffs’ claims against QNB with prejudice.

The Ropes & Gray team also included litigation & enforcement attorney Irina Sivachenko, and associates Daniel Yanofsky, Brittany Royce, Kyle Shaub, and Phil Yao.  The team was supported by managing principal & global head of advanced E-Discovery and A.I. strategy Shannon Capone Kirk, as well as litigation paralegals Jodie Hamilton, Alexander Morozov, and William Hamilton.