Credit: Wikipedia Commons / Cuban-American heirs of a bank nationalized by Cuba’s government filed a lawsuit against France’s Société Générale alleging the multi-national bank profited from confiscated property.

By Gary Raynaldo        DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The American family of the founders of a Cuban bank that was nationalized by Fidel Castro’s socialist government in 1959 have sued France’s Société Générale seeking approximately $792 Million under the new Trump Administration’s policy change allowing lawsuits against seized Cuban property. Since May 2, 2019, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, enacted in 1996, has been in effect.  The statute allows certain persons who have done business with Cuba to be sued in US courts by plaintiffs who had an interest in Cuban property which was confiscated by the Castro regime and from which the defendant later benefited.  In May, Carnival Cruise became the first company sued under the Trump Administration’s new policy.  In the latest Helms-Burton lawsuit,   Sucesores de Don Carlos Nuñez y Doña Pura Galves, Inc., d/b/a Banco Nuñez  V. Société Générale, S.A., d/b/a Société Générale Americas,  Case 1:19-cv-22842-DPG   ( U.S. Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, which sits in Miami),  it is alleged that before Castro came to power, the subject bank, Banco Nuñez was a flourishing enterprise in Cuba.  As of December 31, 1958, Banco Nuñez was the second largest Cuban-owned bank on the island in terms of assets and equity, according to the lawsuit.  It controlled $105.1 million in assets, including $51.5 million in loans, and had equity of $7.8 million. In 1960, Castro’s Cuban Government began nationalizing every banking institution on the island, including  Banco Nuñez, and absorbing them into the state-controlled entity Banco Nacional de Cuba (“BNC”).   In 1961, the sole owners of Banco Nuñez,  Carlos and Pura Nuñez (the “Founders”), fled Cuba to live in the United States.  Now, the Cuban-American heirs of Banco Nuñez are going after Société Générale in court.

“In or around 2000, SocGen created a system of “credit facilities” to enable BNC to circumvent the United States’ economic embargo of Cuba. SocGen’s system involved concealing and processing BNC’s transactions with foreign corporations, and in exchange for this service, SocGen received over $1 billion in profit.”

-Sucesores de Don Carlos Nuñez y Doña Pura Galves, Inc., d/b/a Banco Nuñez  V. Société Générale, S.A., d/b/a Société Générale Americas,  Case 1:19-cv-22842-DPG   alleges in the Complaint.

“SocGen is liable to Plaintiff for “trafficking”  because it conducts commercial activities with BNC and derives profits therefrom,” the Complaint further alleges.

According to the Lawsuit,  In 1996, the Founders’ children and their families created Plaintiff,  a Florida Corporation,  to consolidate, unify and hold one-hundred percent of the claim associated with Banco Nuñez—all of which had been inherited from Founder Carlos Nuñez, after his death in 1979. 

Defendant Société Générale, S.A., is a French multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Paris, France. Société Générale, S.A. does business in the United States as Société Générale Americas, a Delaware corporation with its headquarters at 245 Park Avenue, New York, New York.