Supreme Court to hear Iran central bank appeal of $1.75 billion judgment

The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to consider whether Iranian funds worth $1.75 billion must be turned over to families of the victims of the 1983 bombing of a U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut.

The high court agreed to hear an appeal filed by Bank Markazi, the Iranian central bank. The bank is contesting a July 2014 ruling by the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the money, currently held in a trust account in New York, should be handed over.

The money would be used to pay off a $2.65 billion judgment the victims' families won in a U.S. court against Iran in 2007.

The families accused Iran of providing material support to Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militant group that carried out the attack that killed 241 U.S. servicemen.

The lawsuit was filed in 2010 after the U.S. Treasury Department uncovered the funds at Citibank, part of Citigroup Inc.

The high court's action comes at a delicate time in American-Iranian relations, with the United States and other world powers in July reaching an agreement to curb Iran's nuclear program in exchange for lifting economic sanctions.

The legal question was whether a 2012 law passed by the U.S. Congress that specifically addressed the funds at issue in the dispute violates the U.S. Constitution by dictating the outcome of a court case. The bank also says the appeals court ruling violates a 1955 U.S.-Iran treaty.

The Obama administration had urged the court not to take up the case.

The court will hear oral arguments and decide the case in its new term, which begins next week and ends in June 2016.

The case is Bank Markazi v. Peterson, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 14-770.

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U.S. Supreme Court, Bank Markazi, Iran, Hezbollah, U.S. Congress

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