Mount Lebanon Public Prosecutor Ghada Aoun. (Credit: National News Agency)
BEIRUT — Mount Lebanon's Public Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun seized assets belonging to Credit Libanais Bank CEO Joseph Torbey and AM Bank (al-Mawarid Bank) CEO Marwan Kheireddine in response to their allegedly not allowing clients to withdraw money deposited after October 2019 in their fresh dollar accounts, the National News Agency (NNA) reported on Friday.
L'Orient Today was able to partly confirm this information with the Depositors' Union co-founder, Foad Debs, who said that in the case of AM Bank, the judge ordered the seizure of the bank's assets, not those belonging to its CEO.
According to the NNA, Aoun made this decision after clients filed lawsuits against these banks for denying them access to their deposits. The decision against Mawarid came last week.
Debs told L'Orient Today that the union welcomes Aoun's decision, "especially as we saw many judges — who had been taking actions against banks in favor of depositors — take a 180. Unfortunately, banks are still untouchable, more than four years after the crisis started."
The NNA also reported that Aoun had tried to negotiate with the two banks to give the depositors their money but they only agreed to give as per BDL's circulars which comes with a haircut.
L'Orient Today could not immediately contact any of the depositors themselves who filed these lawsuits.
A senior source at AM Bank told L'Orient Today that the bank did not receive any legal case and denied that any clients had deposited money after 2019 that they could not withdraw.
Neither Credit Libanaise Bank, nor Ghada Aoun, responded to requests for comment.
Following the economic collapse of 2019, most people's deposits were inaccessible to them, as banks placed de-facto capital controls while reportedly allowing billions of dollars for senior politicians to be transferred abroad.
Ghada Aoun regularly engages with charges against banks and former BDL Governor Riad Salameh.