LONDON (Reuters) – Standard Chartered on Tuesday lost a bid to halve the value of a roughly 1.5 billion-pound ($1.94 billion) London lawsuit brought over allegations the lender broke U.S. sanctions against Iran in a more widespread way than it has previously admitted.
More than 200 investors are suing Standard Chartered at London’s High Court for allegedly untrue statements about its sanctions non-compliance between 2007 and 2019.
The lawsuit came after the London-based bank agreed to pay $1.1 billion in 2019 to U.S. and British authorities over transactions which breached sanctions against Iran and other countries.
The 2019 deal extended by two years a 2012 deferred prosecution agreement with Standard Chartered, under which the bank paid U.S. authorities $667 million.
The investors, however, allege non-compliance with sanctions by Standard Chartered beyond what was admitted to regulators, which the bank strongly rejects.
Standard Chartered applied to throw out the cases brought by around 950 investors whose claims were valued at 762 million pounds, around 49% of the total value of the lawsuit.
The bank’s lawyers cited a High Court ruling in a similar shareholders’ lawsuit against Barclays, in which over half the value of the case was thrown out.
But Standard Chartered’s application was rejected, with Judge Michael Green saying the whole of the case should go to trial in October 2026.
A Standard Chartered spokesperson said: “Whilst we acknowledge today’s decision, we regard this claim as being without merit and will continue to vigorously defend the allegations as the claim proceeds to trial.”
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Sachin Ravikumar and Joe Bavier)
