U.S. Sides With Oil Firms, Not Libya’s Victims

…At the moment, the Bush administration is asking Congress to exempt Libya from a four-month-old law passed to help victims of terrorism collect court judgments from the nations that sponsored the attacks. The law applies to Libya, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.

It says plaintiffs with court judgments against any of those nations can seize whatever assets the country has in the U.S., or money the country pays U.S. companies that do business with it. Usually, it’s hard to find either, given that these are nations that have been under economic sanctions for years.


But as Libya has instituted reforms and moved away from its terrorist past, international and U.S. sanctions have lifted and U.S. companies have shaken hands with Libya.

Now those corporations, mostly oil companies, are getting notices from plaintiffs’ lawyers that U.S. victims of Libyan- sponsored terrorism want the money Libya owes them, and the company’s money would do just fine.

Bloomberg