RCBC files suit vs Bank of Bangladesh for defammation

March 12, 2019

Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) said Tuesday it filed a lawsuit against the Bank of Bangladesh (Bangladesh Bank) in a Philippine civil court for defaming RCBC and its executives with allegations of complicity in the $81 million cyber heist of Bangladesh’s central bank in 2016.

The complaint was filed March 6 with the Regional Trial Court in Makati City, Manila.

In the filing, RCBC says its “…reputation has come under the vicious and public attack by Bangladesh Bank since 2016.''

The suit was served to Abu Hena Mohammad Razee Hasan, deputy governor and head of Bangladesh Bank Financial Intelligence Unit (BFIU) and the other members of Bangladesh Bank delegation that arrived in the Philippines this week for meetings with banking officials.

Bangladesh Bank sued RCBC last month in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Tai-Heng Cheng, RCBC’s lead lawyer and a partner at the New York office of law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP said, “the action taken today by RCBC finally puts the case in a court where -- at the very least -- the alleged crime took place.”

RCBC’s defamation suit references Bangladesh’s failures to secure its network and disclose those failings on a timely basis.  

The complaint answers Bangladesh Bank’s allegation that RCBC played a premeditated role in the cyber theft.

“Bangladesh Bank had lost the US $81 million the minute it left defendant Bangladesh Bank’s account at the NY Fed and way before it had even reached the Philippines…. there is absolutely no act attributable to RCBC that caused the payment instructions to reach the NY Fed and the Correspondent Banks,” the complaint said. DMS