RCBC lawyer slams Bangladesh Bank lawsuit as ‘political stunt’

Rizal Commercial Banking Corp.’s (RCBC) newly hired lawyer slammed Bangladesh Bank’s plan to drag the Yuchengco-led lender in court as mere political stunt to cover up its culpability in one of the world’s biggest cyberheists in 2016.

On Wednesday, Fazle Kabir, governor of the Bangladesh Bank, said a lawsuit against RCBC would be filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

In a statement on Friday, RCBC said it has not been officially notified but is aware that a complaint has been filed.

The lender said it has engaged the US law firm of Quinn Emanuel for its defense.

“We will show that this suit is nothing more than a political stunt by the Bangladesh Bank to try to shift blame from themselves to RCBC,” Tai-Heng Cheng, the lead lawyer for RCBC’s defense, said.

“This suit is nothing more than a blatant attempt by Bangladesh Bank to shift blame and cover up their own liability.”

The complaint is “nothing more than a thinly veiled PR campaign disguised as a lawsuit,” the RCBC counsel added.

“Based on what we have heard this suit is completely baseless,” Cheng said.

“If the Bank of Bangladesh was serious about recovering the money, they would have pursued their claims three years ago and not wait until days before the statute of limitations,” the lawyer said.

Just $15 million of the stolen money has been recovered from a Manila junket operator—a role that involves marketing casinos to VIPs, according to a report by Reuters.

In February 2016, unknown criminals used fraudulent orders on the SWIFT payments system to steal $81 million from the Bangladesh central bank account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The money was sent to accounts at the Jupiter branch of RCBC in Makati City and then vanished into the casino industry in the Philippines.

RCBC earlier said the heist was an inside job and Bangladesh Bank was engaging in a cover-up by maligning the local lender.

The RCBC lawyer noted Bangladesh Bank does not have the right to file charges in the US since none of the defendants are in there.

“A review of the facts shows that Bangladesh Bank’s errors, omissions, and lapses in security protocols are the cause of its loss,” Cheng said.

“We believe it is telling that they have concealed information from their own investigation and despite admitting their own culpability, continue to try to blame others,” the lawyer said.

Last month, the Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 14 found former RCBC branch manager Maia Santos-Deguito guilty on eight counts of money laundering in connection with the heist and sentenced her to a jail term ranging from 32 to 56 years.

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas also fined RCBC a record P1 billion in 2016 for its failure to prevent the movement of the stolen money through the bank.

“RCBC had nothing to do with the theft of the funds and has cooperated fully with every investigation into the matter,” Cheng said. —Ted Cordero/VDS, GMA News