The US Supreme Court has rejected Russia's Sberbank's lawsuit over the Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 shot down over Ukraine.

On October 6, the US Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal filed by Russia's Sberbank. Russia's largest bank was attempting to avoid a lawsuit filed under the US anti-terrorism law, according to reports. Reuters.

The lawsuit alleges that the bank collaborated with a group accused of shooting down a Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014.

Judges rejected Sberbank's appeal of a lower court's decision allowing the family of Quinn Shansman, the 18-year-old US citizen who died in the crash, to sue the state-owned bank.

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Shansman's family filed the lawsuit under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows U.S. citizens injured in an "act of international terrorism" to seek compensation through civil suits.

In February, the New York-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that Sberbank was not entitled to sovereign immunity over allegations that it used the U.S. banking system to funnel donor funds to the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic (DPR), a Russia-backed separatist group.

Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, en route from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down by a surface-to-air missile on July 17, 2014, over territory controlled by the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine.

All 298 people on board died, including Shansman, who was heading on vacation.

The Russian government denied any involvement in the incident. Ukraine previously declared the DPR a terrorist organization, and the United States imposed sanctions against the group.

The Russian Ministry of Finance acquired a controlling stake in Sberbank in 2020.

Sberbank claimed it was entitled to a presumption of immunity as a "foreign state" under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The bank claimed the Court of Appeal erroneously found its actions to be commercial activity, thereby invoking an exception to the immunity principle.

Sberbank called the decision "particularly problematic in the context of the escalating diplomatic situation," in which the United States and other countries "that are not usually considered the 'villains'" nonetheless support non-state armed groups.

Furthermore, Sberbank stated that resolving lawsuits like the one involving the Shansman family could provoke retaliatory measures from other countries and even expose the United States itself to liability under the Patriot Act due to the activities of the "paramilitary groups" it supports.

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In response, Shansman's family lawyers urged the Supreme Court to dismiss the appeal, arguing that there is no disagreement among the lower courts regarding the scope of the commercial activity exception. They emphasized that Sberbank is not a "foreign state" within the meaning of the Anti-Terrorism Law.

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