Courts are still working through what allegations are sufficient to state an aiding-and-abetting claim under the Anti-Terrorism Act (“ATA”). Three recent cases consider the Second Circuit’s guidance in Ashley v. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft (discussed here), highlighting the ongoing process of clarifying the boundaries of ATA aiding-and-abetting liability.
The Basics: Aiding-and-Abetting Liability Under the ATA
To state a claim for aiding-and-abetting under the ATA, a plaintiff must plausibly allege that the defendant, among other things, knowingly and substantially assisted the act of international terrorism. The Second Circuit in Ashley required a “concrete nexus” between a defendant’s alleged conduct and a terrorist attack. In other words, “it is not enough to say that the defendant assisted the terrorist organization’s activities in general.” Ashley v. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, 144 F.4th 420, 444 (2d Cir. 2025).
Recent Decisions Applying Ashley's “Concrete Nexus” Requirement
Three recent decisions illustrate how judges are grappling with Ashley’s “concrete nexus” requirement. Two of these decisions relied on Ashley to find the plaintiffs’ alleged causal nexus between a defendant’s action and a terrorist attack too attenuated, so dismissed claims. The third allowed claims based on similar allegations to proceed.
Companies doing business in high-risk jurisdictions might use these decisions to help understand what conduct is and is not going to give rise to liability. Generalized lessons are difficult to draw, but paying attention to these cases might help institutions better understand their risks.
1. Fraenkel v. Standard Chartered Bank – Southern District of New York
The Fraenkel court dismissed claims that Standard Chartered Bank aided and abetted terrorism because there were “several steps between any conduct by SCB and the actions of” the attackers despite allegations that SCB facilitated financial transactions for terrorist front companies and prior admissions of sanctions violations.
Takeaway: Plaintiffs must establish a “concrete nexus” to an attack even if the defendant is alleged to have provided “both routine and fraudulent financial transactions” for entities that fund FTOs. “Even though SCB clearly engaged in some wrongdoing with regard to evading sanctions regimes … this conduct is far too attenuated to establish a direct nexus” to the attacks. Fraenkel v. Standard Chartered Bank, 2025 WL 2773251, at *9 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 26, 2025).
2. Moses v. BNP Paribas, S.A. – Southern District of New York
The Moses court allowed certain aiding-and-abetting claims to proceed as “a close call” where the defendant allegedly “facilitate[ed] numerous financial transactions in a manner that violated U.S. sanctions.” Notably, the allegations were substantively identical to Fraenkel.
Takeaway: Even post-Ashley, courts may find that allegedly providing “financial services that willfully violated sanctions laws” to be a sufficient “concrete nexus” to a terrorist attack. Moses v. BNP Paribas, S.A., 2025 WL 2780803, at *15 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2025).
3. Long v. MTN Group Limited – Eastern District of New York[1]
The Long court dismissed claims arising from a Syrian kidnapping despite previously finding that the defendant’s alleged procurement of dual-use technology was sufficiently connected to explosive-based terrorist attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan. The complaint simply offered no cogent theory of how dual-use technology could be connected to a kidnapping in Syria, by different terrorists, rendering the plaintiff’s theory too attenuated to survive dismissal.
Takeaway: District courts are likely to evaluate Ashley’s “concrete nexus” requirement on a claim-by-claim basis, dismissing claims based on nothing more than alleged awareness that “counterparties [are] notorious terrorist fronts used to raise money and source weapons.”
Final Thought
We previously observed that the Ashley decision “could reshape the scope of potential liability in terrorism-related lawsuits.” The three decisions discussed in this note suggest that it could be some time before we know how lower courts will apply to Ashley’s strict “concrete nexus” requirement. Institutions doing business in high-risk jurisdictions should pay close attention to the evolution of ATA case law.
[1] The authors are counsel of record to defendant MTN Group Limited in the Long case.
