Source: https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2025/10/20/bnp-paribas-shares-fall-after-us-jurys-sudan-verdict
Shares of BNP Paribas, the French bank, fell by as much as 10 percent after a United States jury in Manhattan ruled that the bank helped Sudan’s government commit genocide by providing banking services that violated American sanctions.
The federal jury ordered BNP Paribas to pay a combined $20.5 million to three Sudanese plaintiffs who had testified about human rights abuses that occurred under the former President Omar al-Bashir’s rule.
The verdict raised concerns among traders and analysts about potential future legal exposure for the bank. Attorneys for the three successful plaintiffs stated that the verdict could open the door for more than 20,000 Sudanese refugees in the US to seek billions of dollars in damages.
BNP Paribas announced that it will appeal the verdict, arguing that the result is “clearly wrong” and that any attempt to “extrapolate is necessarily wrong.” Analysts at RBC Capital Markets noted that the lack of visibility regarding the potential financial impact and next legal steps is likely to continue weighing on the bank’s shares. This is not the bank’s first issue regarding Sudan; in 2014, BNP Paribas pleaded guilty and paid an $8.97 billion penalty to settle US charges for transferring billions of dollars for sanctioned Sudanese, Iranian, and Cuban entities.
Power is the ability to compel another actor to act against its own will or to ensure one’s security and national interests. Economic power in this scenario is the manipulation of the economy or another nations economy to benefit the initiator. Frances domination of previously colonized French Africa starts with the berlin conference and ends with the nationalization of the franc when all countries left the country of France during the independence movement of Africa in the mid to late 20th century. Since then, France has kept a strict economic grasp on all of previously colonized Africa. The United States has taken up the opportunity to rid this grasp from interfering with the development of Sudan, one of the countries which had been colonized. This judiciary figure has since prevented millions of dollars from entering private French banks illegally and has called for the French government to pay dues that were indebted to them. This is the removal of economic power in Africa, which is crucial because Sudan is one of the most impoverished nations which has been struck by economic disaster for so long due to foreign corruption and manipulation of its economy.