With a coordinated legal and political campaign, Lebanon’s scorned depositors can finally coerce banking elites into taking responsibility for their actions.

For several years now, Lebanon’s banks have prevented most of their customers from accessing their savings under an illegal capital controls regime. Enjoying no support from Lebanon’s judiciary, central bank or government, depositors are now taking their legal claims overseas.

For Daraj Media, Triangle’s managing editor David Wood explains various legal and political options for Lebanon’s depositors to place the nation’s bankers under pressure from abroad.

Depositors can continue to bring civil suits in strategic jurisdictions like the United States and various European countries, where Lebanese banks often hold significant asset portfolios. They can also lobby foreign governments to launch criminal investigations, while encouraging offshore business partners to abandon the rapacious banking elites.