More than five years after Lebanon’s financial system imploded, the consequences continue to reverberate far beyond the country’s borders. What began as a domestic currency and banking crisis has now spilled into international courts, with aggrieved depositors seeking justice where Lebanese institutions, crippled by political interference and chronic dysfunction, have failed to act. The latest case to capture attention involves Société Générale de Banque au Liban (SGBL), one of the country’s most prominent commercial banks, now facing a civil lawsuit in the United States for allegedly refusing to honor a cashier’s check owed to a Lebanese-American businessman.

The lawsuit, filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida, is being brought by Joseph Zoghaib, a dual national who claims SGBL knowingly issued checks it could not honor. According to the complaint, SGBL drew the $336,000 check from accounts at Banque du Liban (BDL), Lebanon’s central bank – itself named as a defendant – even though it allegedly knew that such payments could no longer be processed amid the country’s spiraling financial collapse.

While neither SGBL nor BDL have publicly commented on the case, court filings reveal that SGBL recently requested an extension until January 12 to formally respond. The case is now entering the discovery phase, though both sides have agreed to seek resolution through court-supervised mediation, which could delay or potentially prevent a trial in 2025.

To understand how a dispute between a private depositor and a Lebanese bank ended up before a US court, it is necessary to revisit the extraordinary circumstances that arose in late 2019. For decades, Lebanese banks operated under a system that effectively pegged the Lebanese pound to the US dollar, allowing depositors to freely open dollar-denominated accounts, transfer........

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