The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a judgment allowing families of
victims of the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Beirut and other terrorist
attacks to collect nearly $2 billion in frozen Iranian funds.

The court on Wednesday ruled 6-2 in favor of more than 1,300 relatives of the
241 U.S. service members who died in the Beirut bombing and victims of other
attacks that courts have linked to Iran.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote the opinion for the court rejecting efforts
by Iran’s central bank to try to stave off court orders that would allow the
relatives to be paid for their losses. The money is sitting in a federal court trust
account.

Iran’s Bank Markazi complained that Congress was intruding into the business
of federal courts when it passed a 2012 law that specifically directs that the
banks’ assets in the United States be turned over to the families. President
Barack Obama issued an executive order earlier in 2012 freezing the Iranian
central bank’s assets in the United States.