BAC
Court says: not so fast
Bank of America just got a legal win from a federal appeals panel, which refused to revive a class action brought by Mohammad Farshad Abdollah Nia, an Iranian living in California. He said BofA wrongfully shut down his account in 2019 after getting tripped up over residency paperwork.
The legal fine print matters
Nia argued the bank violated the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act, and the state’s Unfair Competition Law. But the courts sided with BofA’s argument that it was protected from liability under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and related Iranian sanctions rules.
Why investors should care
This isn’t the kind of headline that sends customers sprinting to the exits, but it does keep BofA’s legal risk file from getting thinner. Banks always have a few lawsuits rattling around the basement, and this one is more pothole than sinkhole.
Big picture: BofA keeps collecting wins in court, which is nice — even if the market would still prefer the headlines to involve something more glamorous than sanctions paperwork.