My late father was a banker in Cuba. He worked for a Cuban-owned bank, one of several financial institutions founded and run by Cuban families over the 20th century.
Yes, there were U.S., Canadian, and even a Taiwanese bank in Cuba. At the same time, Cubans had founded and developed a first-rate banking system that competed successfully with foreign enterprises.
Again, my father worked for one such bank: Banco Continental Cubano. He started out as a teller and rose to a branch manager before the banks were expropriated in the 1960s.
My late father, and some of his bank colleagues in heaven, must be having a big laugh about this story:
In a complaint filed on Wednesday with the U.S. District Court in Miami, 14 grandchildren of Carlos and Pura Nuñez, who once owned Banco Nuñez, want to hold Societe Generale liable under U.S. law for doing business with Cuba’s central bank, which nationalized Banco Nuñez and other lenders in 1960.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs said he believed the case was the first against a bank that allegedly “trafficked” in property expropriated by the Castro regime, since the Trump administration said in April it would begin letting U.S. nationals sue companies for such conduct.
“Victims of the Cuban regime who had their property confiscated now have a vehicle to get justice,” Javier Lopez, the lawyer, said in an interview. “We have multiple financial institutions that we’re looking to target.”
Societe Generale did not immediately respond to requests for comment after market hours.
Well, isn’t that great? It’s also simple justice.
The Nuñez family founded the bank in 1921. They did not inherit the bank or the money. They did it the old fashioned way. In fact, it was one of two Cuban banks in pre-Castro Cuba rated as one of the 500 top banks in the world.
I remember my father talking about it. Banco Núñez was the competition, but my father had friends there and respected BancoNuñez.
Why is this happening? The answer is: President Trump, and I am grateful for that.
Our family has nothing to recover from any of these lawsuits. I am cheering from the sidelines because this whole darn episode was a terrible injustice.
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