United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued February 2, 2023 Decided July 7, 2023

No. 22-7083

MARY OFISI, ET AL.,

APPELLANTS

v.

BNP PARIBAS, S.A.,

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:15-cv-02010)

David Dickens argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellants.

Carmine D. Boccuzzi Jr. argued the cause for appellees. 

With him on the brief was Mark E. McDonald.

Marc J. Gottridge was on the brief for amicus curiae 

Institute of International Bankers in support of appellees. 
2

Before: RAO, Circuit Judge, and SENTELLE and 

ROGERS, Senior Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Senior Circuit Judge

SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Senior Circuit Judge: Appellants are 

survivors and family members of victims of the 1998 U.S. 

embassy attacks in Kenya and Tanzania. They bring suit 

against Appellee BNP Paribas, S.A. (“BNPP”), an international 

bank, alleging the bank acted in support of the terrorists who 

committed those attacks. The United States District Court for 

the District of Columbia granted Appellee’s motion to dismiss 

under Rule 12(b)(6). For the reasons set forth below, we affirm 

the district court on all counts. 

I. Background and Procedural Posture

As this is an appeal from the grant of a motion to 

dismiss, “the relevant facts are those alleged in the complaint, 

taken in the light most favorable to the plaintiff and with all 

reasonable inferences drawn in his favor.” Hurd v. District of 

Columbia, 864 F.3d 671, 675 (D.C. Cir. 2017). The following 

facts therefore draw from Plaintiff-Appellants’ Complaint.

This case arises from the 1998 embassy bombings in 

Kenya and Tanzania, perpetrated by Usama bin Laden and alQaeda, that killed over 200 people and wounded thousands. In 

the years leading up to the attack, the country of Sudan 

welcomed al-Qaeda to its borders, promising shelter and other 

benefits to the terrorist organization. As a result of Sudan’s 

state-sponsored terrorism, the United States imposed an 

embargo on all goods and services to Sudan, including 

financial services, in 1997. 

 
3

Appellee BNPP is a French bank headquartered in Paris 

with branches around the world, including in New York. In 

2014 United States court proceedings, BNPP admitted to 

flouting U.S. sanctions on Sudan by establishing a banking 

relationship with the country in 1997. Sudan instructed its 

Central Bank and other commercial banks to use BNPP as their 

sole correspondent bank in Europe. In this capacity, BNPP 

allowed Sudan to establish bank accounts in U.S. dollars, in 

violation of the sanctions, and hid U.S. dollar transactions to 

and from Sudan. One of the financial institutions

corresponding with BNPP was Al-Shamal, a Sudanese bank 

stabilized by a $50 million investment from bin Laden and 

holder of bin Laden and al-Qaeda accounts. Appellants 

originally named Al-Shamal in this action, but they have since 

dropped Al-Shamal from this suit after reaching a settlement 

with the Government of Sudan. 

Appellants represent over 500 victims of the 1998 

embassy attacks, including U.S. citizens, U.S. contractors, and

their surviving family members. Appellants’ theory of BNPP’s 

liability follows this causal chain: BNPP, as Sudan’s only 

connection to worldwide financial markets in the years before

the 1998 attacks, violated U.S. sanctions by supporting Sudan’s 

economy and banking system, including Al-Shamal Bank. AlQaeda terrorists banked at Al-Shamal. Without al-Qaeda’s 

access to foreign markets through Al-Shamal, Appellants argue 

that al-Qaeda would have lacked the capital to carry out the 

bombings. 

Appellants also argue the existence of a larger 

conspiracy between BNPP and al-Qaeda. According to 

Appellants’ theory, BNPP’s support of the Sudanese financial 

sector and al-Qaeda’s 1998 attacks shared the same goal of 

flouting U.S. sanctions. Therefore, Appellants argue, BNPP 
4 

should hold responsibility for the acts, including the bombings, 

perpetrated in furtherance of that goal. 

 Appellants brought suit in the district court on 

numerous grounds including, as relevant to this appeal: federal 

common law claims of (1) conspiracy and (2) aiding and 

abetting; (3) aiding and abetting under the Alien Tort Statute

(ATS); and (4) several statutory violations under the AntiTerrorism Act (ATA). The district court granted Appellee’s 

motion to dismiss all of Appellants’ claims. Ofisi v. BNP 

Paribas, S.A., 278 F. Supp. 3d 84, 112 (D.D.C. 2017), order 

vacated in part, 285 F. Supp. 3d 240 (D.D.C. 2018). On 

appeal, Appellants allege error in the dismissal of each of the 

claims. For the reasons set forth below, we reject Appellants’ 

arguments as to each of their claims. 

 

II. Discussion

“We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of the 

. . . claims under Rule 12(b)(6).” Sparrow v. United Air Lines, 

Inc., 216 F.3d 1111, 1113 (D.C. Cir. 2000). As referenced 

above, we “treat the complaint’s factual allegations as true . . . 

and . . . grant plaintiff ‘the benefit of all inferences that can be 

derived from the facts alleged.’” Id. (quoting Schuler v. United 

States, 617 F.2d 605, 608 (D.C. Cir. 1979)). 

i. Common Law Conspiracy 

Appellants first allege the existence of a civil 

conspiracy between al-Qaeda, BNPP, Al-Shamal Bank, and 

Sudan. To establish common law conspiracy, a party must 

allege “(1) an agreement between two or more persons; (2) to 

participate in an unlawful act, or a lawful act in an unlawful 

manner; (3) an injury caused by an unlawful overt act 

performed by one of the parties to the agreement; [and] (4) 
5

which overt act was done pursuant to and in furtherance of the 

common scheme.” Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472, 477 

(D.C. Cir. 1983). Appellants contend that the common scheme

consisted of evading U.S. sanctions on Sudan, and both 

BNPP’s establishment of banking relations with Sudanese 

financial institutions and al-Qaeda’s embassy bombings 

furthered that goal. 

The district court held that BNPP and al-Qaeda shared 

no common scheme to bomb the U.S. embassies, thus failing 

the fourth requirement of Halberstam’s conspiracy test. Ofisi, 

278 F. Supp. 3d at 110. Instead, the court held that the only 

scheme common to al-Qaeda, BNPP, and Al-Shamal Bank was 

to circumvent U.S. sanctions, and no private cause of action 

exists for sanctions violations. Id. The district court also 

emphasized that Appellants did not plausibly allege that BNPP 

knew of any larger common scheme between Sudan and alQaeda to perpetrate these attacks. Id. 

We agree with the district court. The proper framework 

with which to evaluate secondary liability claims under the 

common law is Halberstam, as the district court correctly noted

and Appellants acknowledge. And like the district court, we 

conclude that Appellants did not plausibly allege that BNPP 

and al-Qaeda shared a common scheme under Halberstam. AlQaeda’s objective was to blow up U.S. embassies in Africa. 

BNPP’s objective was to provide banking services, admittedly 

in violation of the U.S. embargo, to Sudan. Appellants’ attempt 

to connect these two vastly different goals, by claiming the 

parties entered a common scheme to evade U.S. sanctions, is 

attenuated at best. 

Our decision in Bernhardt v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 

47 F.4th 856 (D.C. Cir. 2022), is instructive. In Bernhardt, we 

held that appellants could not maintain a conspiracy claim, 
6

evaluated under Halberstam, against global bank HSBC 

because

HSBC was trying to make “substantial profits”

by evading sanctions, whereas al-Qaeda sought 

to “terrorize the U.S. into retreating from the 

world stage”; “use long wars to financially 

bleed the U.S. while inflaming anti-American 

sentiment”; “defend the rights of Muslims”; and 

“obtain global domination through a violent 

Islamic caliphate.” These objectives are wholly 

orthogonal to one another.

Id. at 873 (quoting Bernhardt appellants’ complaint). 

Appellants attempt to differentiate Bernhardt. They 

assert that appellants in that case failed to allege an overt act 

under Halberstam because al-Qaeda’s bombing did not further 

HSBC’s objective to evade U.S. sanctions. By contrast,

Appellants argue in this case that al-Qaeda’s embassy 

bombings shared the same objective as BNPP of evading U.S. 

sanctions, and that the bombings furthered that goal. 

Appellants heavily rely on evidence presented by federal 

prosecutors in a 2010 criminal trial for a co-conspirator that one 

of the many goals of the embassy bombings was “[t]o cease the 

campaign for the annihilation and humiliation that are being 

waged by the United States against a number of Islamic peoples 

under the titles of blockades or economic sanctions that has led 

to the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the hunger of 

millions of Muslims.” A47–48 (quoting Trial Tr., United 

States v. Ahmed Ghailani, No. 98-cr-1023 (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 20, 

2010), at 897). 

Appellants’ arguments are unpersuasive. They do not 

plausibly allege that al-Qaeda’s embassy bombings in any way 
7 

furthered BNPP’s goal of evading U.S. sanctions on Sudan. 

Appellants themselves concede that “BNPP did not share [al-] 

Qaeda’s desire to kill American citizens and citizens of their 

allies.” A45 (Compl. ¶ 3). At bottom, al-Qaeda sought to 

brutally murder employees of U.S. embassies. BNPP sought 

to evade U.S. sanctions on Sudan by establishing banking 

relations with that country. As in Bernhardt, these goals are 

simply orthogonal to one another. 

 

 Appellants’ common law conspiracy claim fails for 

another, independent reason; namely, Appellants do not tether 

their claim to an underlying, actionable tort. “Since liability 

for civil conspiracy depends on performance of some 

underlying tortious act, the conspiracy is not independently 

actionable; rather, it is a means for establishing vicarious 

liability for the underlying tort.” Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 479. 

As the district court correctly noted, there is no private right of 

action for violation of banking sanctions under the common 

law. Ofisi, 278 F.Supp 3d. at 110. Appellants’ common law 

conspiracy claim fails. 

ii. Common Law Aiding and Abetting 

Appellants next assert common law aiding and abetting 

liability for BNPP. To establish this, “(1) the party whom the 

defendant aids must perform a wrongful act that causes an 

injury; (2) the defendant must be generally aware of his role as 

part of an overall illegal or tortious activity at the time that he 

provides the assistance; [and] (3) the defendant must 

knowingly and substantially assist the principal violation.” 

Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 477. As with their conspiracy claim, 

Appellants contend that BNPP “hatched a secret and illegal 

scheme” to evade U.S. sanctions by providing financial support 

to Sudanese banks, which in turn assisted al-Qaeda in funding 

the embassy bombings. Appellant Br. 33. 
8

The district court dismissed this claim. It held that 

BNPP never knowingly or substantially assisted in the 

bombings under Halberstam’s third requirement, as Appellants 

offered no well-pled allegations that BNPP directly or 

indirectly funded the attacks. Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 111. 

 

Appellants first contend the district court erred by 

requiring them to show under Halberstam’s general awareness

requirement that BNPP had an “intent and desire to make the 

[criminal] venture succeed.” Appellant Br. 31–32 (alteration 

in original) (quoting Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 111 n.23). They 

instead cite this Court’s recent case of Atchley v. AstraZeneca 

UK Ltd., 22 F.4th 204 (D.C. Cir. 2022), for the proposition that 

“[t]here is no specific intent requirement” to allege general 

awareness for aiding and abetting liability, Appellant Br. 32 

(quoting Atchley, 22 F.4th at 220). Appellants secondly argue 

that they plausibly allege BNPP’s aiding and abetting liability

under Halberstam’s knowing and substantial assistance 

requirement. We reject both arguments. 

1. General awareness

First, regarding general awareness, “a defendant may 

be liable for aiding and abetting an act of terrorism if it was 

generally aware of its role in an overall illegal activity from 

which an act of international terrorism was a foreseeable risk.” 

Atchley, 22 F.4th at 220 (quoting Kaplan v. Lebanese Canadian 

Bank, SAL, 999 F.3d 842, 860 (2d Cir. 2021) (internal 

quotation marks omitted)). Additionally, when an 

intermediary between the alleged abettor and terrorist is 

involved, as here, Bernhardt instructs that
9

the general awareness requirement is satisfied if 

(1) the defendant was aware of the 

intermediary’s connection to the terrorist 

organization, and (2) the intermediary is “so 

closely intertwined” with the terrorist 

organization’s illegal activities as to give rise to 

an inference that the defendant was generally 

aware of its role in the organization’s terrorist 

activities. 

47 F.4th at 867–68 (quoting Honickman v. BLOM Bank SAL, 6 

F.4th 487, 501 (2d Cir. 2021)). 

More recently, the Supreme Court in Twitter, Inc. v. 

Taamneh, 143 S. Ct. 1206 (2023), considered aiding and 

abetting liability for terrorism under the ATA. In that case, 

appellants brought suit against Twitter and other social-media 

platforms for failing to stop “ISIS [from using] defendants’ 

social-media platforms to recruit new terrorists and to raise 

funds for terrorism.” Id. at 1215. In evaluating appellants’ 

claims, the Court acknowledged that “[Halberstam’s] precise 

three-element and six-factor test thus may not be entirely 

adequate to resolve these new facts.” Id. at 1220. Instead, the 

Court reasoned, it “must ascertain the ‘basic thrust’ of 

Halberstam’s elements and determine how to ‘adap[t]’ its 

framework to the facts before us today.” Id. (quoting 

Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 478 n.8). The Court emphasized the 

need for some culpable conduct in aiding and abetting cases, 

“lest mostly passive actors like banks become liable for all of 

their customers’ crimes by virtue of carrying out routine 

transactions.” Id. at 1222 (emphasis added) (citations omitted). 

In other words, the Court continued, aiding and abetting “refers 

to a conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation in 

another’s wrongdoing.” Id. at 1223.
10

Of course, this does not mean, as the Court cautioned,

that the defendant must “have known ‘all particulars of the 

primary actor’s plan.’” Id. at 1224 (quoting Restatement 

(Third) of Torts: Intentional Torts to Persons § 10, Comment c, 

p. 104 (Tent. Draft No. 3, Apr. 6, 2018)). For example, the 

Court continued, “a defendant might be held liable for aiding 

and abetting the burning of a building if he intentionally helped 

others break into the building at night and then, unknown to 

him, the others lit torches to guide them through the dark and 

accidentally started a fire.” Twitter, 143 S. Ct. at 1224–25

(citations omitted). The “conceptual core” of aiding and 

abetting liability rather is “that the defendant consciously and 

culpably ‘participate[d]’ in a wrongful act so as to help ‘make 

it succeed.’” Id. at 1223 (quoting Nye & Nissen v. United 

States, 336 U.S. 613, 619 (1949)).

We note that cases like Bernhardt, Atchley, and Twitter

evaluate claims under the Anti-Terrorism Act, not common 

law. However, these courts use Halberstam, a common law 

case, as the framework for statutory liability, pursuant to a 2016 

amendment to the ATA. See Justice Against Sponsors of 

Terrorism Act, Pub. L. No. 114-222, § 2(a)(5), 130 Stat. 852, 

852 (2016) (“Halberstam . . . has been widely recognized as 

the leading case regarding [f]ederal civil aiding and abetting 

and conspiracy liability, including by the Supreme Court of the 

United States, [and] provides the proper legal framework for 

how such liability should function.”); see also Twitter, 143 S.

Ct. at 1219–20; Bernhardt, 47 F.4th at 867 (“The ATA does 

not provide a definition of aiding and abetting liability, but 

instead incorporates the analysis in Halberstam . . . .”); 

Atchley, 22 F.4th at 215. We therefore use these cases to 

evaluate Appellants’ common law aiding and abetting claim. 

 

Appellants do not plausibly allege BNPP was 

“generally aware of its role in an ‘overall illegal activity’ from 
11

which an ‘act of international terrorism’ was a foreseeable 

risk,” Atchley, 22 F.4th at 220 (quoting Kaplan, 999 F.3d at 

860), or that it “consciously and culpably ‘participate[d]’ in a 

wrongful act so as to help ‘make it succeed,’” Twitter, 143 S. 

Ct. at 1223 (alteration in original); see also Ofisi v. BNP 

Paribas, S.A., No. 15-2010, 2018 WL 396234, at *5 (D.D.C. 

Jan. 11, 2018). Under our precedent in Halberstam and 

Atchley, Appellants are correct that no specific intent for the 

precise criminal venture to succeed is required to allege general 

awareness in aiding and abetting liability. Atchley, 22 F.4th at 

223; see also Twitter, 143 S. Ct. at 1219 (discussing 

Halberstam for the proposition that the defendant “was not . . . 

even allegedly aware of the murder. But the facts made clear 

that ‘[s]he was a willing partner in [Welch’s] criminal 

activities.’” (alteration in original) (citation omitted) (quoting 

Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 474)). Halberstam’s language 

regarding the “intent and desire to make the venture succeed” 

was in the context of the knowing and substantial assistance 

factors under aiding and abetting’s third requirement. 

Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 488; see also infra Part II.ii.2.; see 

also Twitter, 143 S. Ct. at 1229 (“The ‘knowing’ part of that 

inquiry is therefore designed to capture the defendants’ state of 

mind with respect to their actions and the tortious conduct 

(even if not always the particular terrorist act), not the same 

general awareness that defines Halberstam’s second 

element.”). That general awareness does not require a specific 

intent does not mean, as Appellants seem to believe, that aiding 

and abetting liability contains no knowledge requirement. 

Aiding and abetting “requires more than the provision of 

material support to a terrorist organization.” Kaplan, 999 F.3d 

at 860 (emphasis omitted) (quoting Linde v. Arab Bank, PLC, 

882 F.3d 314 (2d Cir. 2018)). And as the Supreme Court 

recently reiterated, “the concept of ‘helping’ in the commission 

of a crime—or a tort—has never been boundless.” Twitter, 143 

S. Ct. at 1220. Instead, aiding and abetting liability requires a 
12

showing of “a conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation 

in another’s wrongdoing.” Id. at 1223.

Appellants simply do not plausibly allege that BNPP 

was generally aware of any role it allegedly played in the U.S. 

embassy bombings or that it consciously participated in any act

to make the bombings succeed. Nor do they plausibly allege 

that BNPP was aware of the connection between Al-Shamal 

Bank, the intermediary between BNPP and al-Qaeda, and alQaeda. See Bernhardt, 47 F.4th at 867–68; see also Ofisi, 278 

F. Supp. 3d at 101 (“[T]he complaint does not contain any 

detailed factual allegations that BNPP knew about [AlShamal’s] supposed connections to al Qaeda . . . . [I]t appears 

that the relationship between Al Shamal and [b]in Laden was 

not widely reported until after the 1998 embassy bombings.”). 

Appellants therefore fail to allege that BNPP was “generally 

aware of [its] role as part of an overall illegal or tortious 

activity.” Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 477. 

2. Knowing and Substantial 

Assistance

Second, we agree with the district court that Appellants 

do not plausibly allege that BNPP knowingly and substantially 

assisted al-Qaeda in its attacks. As both parties agree, 

Halberstam identifies six factors for evaluating this 

requirement: “[1] the nature of the act encouraged; [2] the 

amount [and kind] of assistance given; [3] the defendant’s 

absence or presence at the time of the tort; [4] his relation to 

the tortious actor; . . . [5] the defendant’s state of mind”; and

“[6] [the] duration of the assistance provided.” Halberstam, 

705 F.2d at 483–84 (alteration in original). 

None of these factors favors Appellants. First, 

Appellants do not allege BNPP “encouraged” the U.S. embassy 
13

attacks by al-Qaeda. Second, Appellants do not allege that any

of the financial assistance provided by BNPP to Sudanese 

banking institutions flowed to al-Qaeda to fund its murderous 

plots. Third, Appellants do not allege, and indeed cannot

plausibly allege, that BNPP was present during the bombings. 

Fourth, while Appellants spend a majority of their briefs 

attempting to connect BNPP with al-Qaeda, they fail to 

plausibly allege the two entities had any relationship 

whatsoever with one another. Through a series of attenuated 

links, Appellants connect BNPP through its financial support 

of Sudan to al-Qaeda, which banked in Sudan, and thus to alQaeda’s bombings. This “causal” chain is simply too remote. 

Cf. Ungar v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 211 F. Supp. 2d 91, 100 

(D.D.C. 2002) (discussing requirements for establishing chain 

conspiracy). Fifth, Appellants fail to plausibly allege BNPP 

knew of the plot to bomb the embassies or intended to support 

al-Qaeda in its mission. See Twitter, 143 S. Ct. at 1230 

(referring to defendants’ state of mind under Halberstam’s fifth 

element as “their undisputed lack of intent to support [the 

terrorist organization].”). Finally, Appellants do not plausibly 

allege any assistance from BNPP to al-Qaeda. Even if 

Appellants had, that “assistance” lasted a short period of time 

between the 1997 sanctions and 1998 bombings. Appellants 

simply cannot bend this final consideration in their favor, 

especially in light of this Court’s determination in Bernhardt 

that even “lengthy business relationships with the foreign 

banks” did not satisfy Halberstam’s final factor. 47 F.4th at 

872 (“Because the foreign banks are global financial 

institutions with legitimate operations and uncertain ties to alQaeda, we cannot infer substantial assistance to al-Qaeda from 

[appellee’s] lengthy business relationships with the foreign 

banks.”). 

In sum, Appellants’ common law aiding and abetting 

claim was properly dismissed by the district court.
14 

iii. Aiding and Abetting under the Alien 

Tort Statute 

Appellants also allege aiding and abetting liability 

under the Alien Tort Statute. Applying the standards of 

customary international law, the district court dismissed this 

claim, finding Appellants failed to plausibly allege either the

proper actus reus or mens rea requirements. Ofisi, 278 F. 

Supp. 3d at 109. Appellants contend the district court erred by 

requiring them to plead a “higher burden” than the law requires 

for those elements. Appellant Br. 39. 

In fact, Appellants’ aiding and abetting claim under the 

ATS fails for a much simpler reason. The ATS is a purely 

jurisdictional statute and does not itself create a private cause 

of action. 28 U.S.C. § 1350 (“The district courts shall have 

original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort 

only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of 

the United States.”); see also Sosa v. Alvarez-Machain, 542 

U.S. 692, 714 (2004). And after the district court’s 2017 

decision in this case, the Supreme Court held that the ATS’s 

jurisdiction does not extend to foreign corporate defendants. 

Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 138 S. Ct. 1386, 1407 (2018) 

(“[F]oreign corporations may not be defendants in suits 

brought under the ATS.”). BNPP, an international bank 

headquartered in Paris, France, is a foreign corporation, which 

Appellants admit in their own Complaint. A51, Compl. ¶ 18 

(“BNPP is a French multinational bank, incorporated under the 

laws of France, and headquartered in Paris, France.”). 

Therefore, Appellants cannot maintain a claim against BNPP 

within the jurisdiction created by the ATS.

 

While Appellants fail to grapple with Jesner in their 

opening brief, on reply, they unconvincingly argue that BNPP 
15 

is a U.S. person because it has American branches and a North 

American headquarters in New York. For further evidence, 

Appellants cite BNPP’s guilty plea before the District Court for 

the Southern District of New York in 2014 for economic 

sanctions violations. They also argue that the definition of 

“U.S. person” from the 1997 Executive Order for Sudanese 

sanctions encompasses BNPP, and that BNPP is a U.S. person 

under 18 U.S.C. § 2332d(b)(2), which defines a U.S. person as 

“(A) United States citizen or national; (B) permanent resident 

alien; (C) juridical person organized under the laws of the 

United States; or (D) any person in the United States.” Id.

None of these arguments is persuasive. The Southern 

District of New York attained jurisdiction over BNPP for its 

2014 guilty plea not because it defined BNPP as a U.S. person, 

but because some of BNPP’s illegal sanction-evading conduct 

occurred at its New York branch. See Gov’t Memo in Support 

of the Court’s Acceptance of the Plea Agreement, United States 

v. BNP Paribas S.A., No. 1:14-cr-00460 (S.D.N.Y. 2014), at 5 

(“U.S. sanctions laws applied to BNPP when it processed 

transactions through its U.S. branch in New York . . . .”); see 

also Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 99. Further, assuming that 

§ 2332d(b) applies, the district court correctly noted that BNPP 

is not a “juridical person organized under the laws of the United 

States” under § 2332d(b)(2)(C) because BNPP is organized 

under the laws of France, again as Appellants’ Complaint 

acknowledges. Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 98–99 (emphasis 

omitted); see also A51, Compl. ¶ 18. Nor is BNPP “any person 

in the United States” under subparagraph (D) because, as the 

district court correctly reasoned, “interpreting subparagraph 

(D) to apply to juridical persons would render subparagraph

(C) superfluous because companies organized under the laws 

of the U.S. are by definition located in the U.S., as that is their 

place of incorporation.” Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 99. Finally, 

we agree with the district court that the 1997 Executive Order 
16 

does not encompass BNPP within its definition of “U.S. 

person.” See id. 

BNPP is a French bank, headquartered in Paris, under 

the laws of France. It is a foreign corporation, and pursuant to 

the Supreme Court’s Jesner opinion, Appellants cannot 

maintain a cause of action against it under the Alien Tort 

Statute. 

 

iv. Statutory Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA)

Claims 

Appellants finally allege two claims against BNPP 

under the ATA, 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a), which supplies a private 

cause of action for victims of international terrorism, Owens v. 

BNP Paribas, S.A., 897 F.3d 266, 270 (D.C. Cir. 2018); see 

also 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a). Appellants specifically allege claims 

that BNPP materially supported terrorists, § 2339A(a), and that 

BNPP was a U.S. person engaged in financial transactions with 

a country supporting terrorism, § 2332d(a). The district court 

dismissed the § 2339A(a) claims because Appellants failed to 

plausibly allege that BNPP knew or should have known its 

transactions would end up supporting al-Qaeda, Ofisi, 278 F. 

Supp. 3d at 100, and for lack of proximate causation between 

BNPP’s actions and the embassy bombings, id. at 102–03. The 

court relied in part on its factually similar case of Owens v. BNP 

Paribas S.A., 235 F. Supp. 3d 85 (D.D.C. 2017), aff’d, 897 F.3d 

266 (D.C. Cir. 2018), emphasizing that “the fact that money 

was transferred to or for a state sponsor of terrorism makes it 

more likely that the money was used for terrorism than if the 

transfers had been to a state that does not sponsor . . . 

terrorism.” Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 102 (quoting Owens, 235 

F. Supp. 3d at 99). Still, Sudan “is a government, and as such 

it has many legitimate agencies, operations, and programs to 

fund.” Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 102 (quoting Rothstein v. UBS 
17

AG, 708 F.3d 82, 97 (2d Cir. 2013)). Therefore, “[p]rocessing

funds for Sudan [or Sudanese commercial banks] is not the 

same as processing funds for a terrorist organization or a 

terrorist front.” Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 102 (quoting Owens, 

235 F. Supp. 3d at 99). The court also dismissed Appellants’ 

§ 2332d claims after finding that BNPP did not qualify as a 

United States person as defined in the statute. Ofisi, 278 F. 

Supp. 3d at 98–100. 

We agree with the district court on all counts. First, as 

we discussed extensively above, BNPP is not a U.S. person and 

therefore Plaintiffs have no cause of action against BNPP under 

§ 2332d. See supra Part II.iii. 

Second, to maintain any claim under the ATA, 

Appellants must plausibly allege (1) an injury to a U.S. 

national, (2) by act of international terrorism, and (3) proximate 

causation. See Atchley, 22 F.4th at 226; see also Ofisi, 278 F. 

Supp. 3d at 96. Putting aside any knowledge requirements, any 

hope of Appellants plausibly alleging proximate causation 

between BNPP’s sanctions-evading support of Sudan and alQaeda’s embassy bombings is thoroughly dashed by this 

Court’s Owens case, decided after the district court’s decision 

in this case. 897 F.3d 266. Appellants in Owens and in this 

case filed their complaints within two weeks of one another;

both cases were heard and dismissed by the same district court 

judge; and we have since upheld that court’s Owens ruling. Id. 

at 276. So with good reason, we hold that Owens precludes 

Appellants’ ATA claims in this case, as well.

Owens presents nearly identical facts. The Owens 

appellants were victims or family members of victims of the 

U.S. embassy bombings by al-Qaeda in Kenya and Tanzania in 

1998; they brought suit against BNPP for establishing banking 

relations with Sudan in violation of U.S. sanctions; and just as
18

in this case, they “allege[d] [BNPP] provided material support 

to al Qaeda by processing financial transactions for Sudanese 

banks, converting Sudanese resources into U.S. banknotes, and 

circumventing U.S. sanctions on Sudan. Those Sudanese 

banks then sent that U.S. currency to al Qaeda, which used the 

funds to commit the embassy bombings.” Owens, 897 F.3d at

269–71 (citation omitted). 

We held that the Owens appellants could not satisfy 

proximate causation between BNPP’s support of Sudanese 

banks in 1997 and 1998 and the embassy bombings. Id. at 276. 

We accepted the proposition that appellants established a 

banking relationship between BNPP and Sudan in the years 

before the attacks, although appellants spent much of their 

complaint focused on BNPP’s banking relations with Sudan 

after 1997. Id. at 273–75. Even so, we held that “Plaintiffs 

must plausibly allege that any inferred transactions between 

BNPP and Sudan were ‘a “substantial factor” in the sequence 

of events that led to [Plaintiffs’] injur[ies].’” Id. at 275 

(alterations in original) (quoting Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 91). 

We found the Second Circuit’s case of Rothstein v. UBS AG, 

708 F.3d 82 (2d Cir. 2013), with very similar facts instructive. 

Owens, 897 F.3d at 275. Drawing from that case, we reasoned 

that “when an intermediary is a sovereign state with ‘many 

legitimate agencies, operations, and programs to fund,’ the 

need for additional allegations supporting substantiality is all

the more acute.” Id. at 276 (quoting Rothstein, 708 F.3d at 97). 

We ultimately concluded that “in order to satisfy proximate 

causation under the ATA, Plaintiffs’ complaint needs to 

adequately plead facts alleging that BNPP substantially 

contributed to Plaintiffs’ injuries because the funds to Sudan 

‘actually [were] transferred to al Qaeda . . . and aided in’ the 

embassy bombings.” Owens, 897 F.3d at 276 (alteration in 

original) (emphasis omitted) (quoting In re Terrorist Attacks 

on Sept. 11, 2001, 714 F.3d 118, 124 (2d Cir. 2013)). Because 
19

the Owens appellants failed to make any non-conclusory 

allegations that funds from BNPP were actually transferred to 

al-Qaeda and aided in the bombings or that the funds were 

necessary for Sudan to fund the attacks by al-Qaeda, their ATA 

claim failed for lack of proximate causation. Owens, 897 F.3d 

at 276. 

Such is exactly the case here. Appellants do not 

plausibly allege that any money passed from BNPP’s financial 

support of Sudan to al-Qaeda in preparation for the embassy 

bombings. See Ofisi, 278 F. Supp. 3d at 101 (“[T]here are no 

detailed factual allegations to support . . . [that] BNPP 

processed U.S. dollar transactions for Al Shamal before the 

embassy bombings.”). Appellants’ attempts to differentiate 

Owens are weak, at best. See Reply Br. 2–4. Appellants claim 

“[t]his case is not Owens . . .” because the Owens appellants 

only brought claims under the ATA, not the ATS or common 

law, and because Appellants in this case set forth “materially 

different” factual allegations than those in Owens. Reply Br.

2–3. However, Appellants largely fail to identify any major 

differences between the facts alleged in Owens and in their 

case, choosing instead to regurgitate their allegations and add

a conclusory statement that “the allegations of the complaint in 

this case go well beyond the allegations in the complaint filed 

in Owens v. BNP Paribas.” Id. at 5. In fact, Appellants still 

fail to plausibly allege what Owens requires—a flow of money 

between BNPP and al-Qaeda that injured them. 

We affirm the district court’s dismissal of Appellants’ 

§ 2339A(a) ATA claim using the exact words we did in Owens: 

“Plaintiffs’ complaint fails to plausibly allege that any currency 

processed by BNPP for Sudan was either in fact sent to al 

Qaeda or necessary for Sudan to fund the embassy bombings.

[Therefore], Plaintiffs fail to adequately allege that they were 

injured ‘by reason of’ BNPP’s acts and cannot state a claim for 
20

relief based on a theory of primary liability under the ATA.” 

Owens, 897 F.3d at 276. 

III. Conclusion

For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm the district 

court on all counts.

So ordered.