The World in U.S. Courts: Summer 2013 - Personal Jurisdiction
June.25.2013
The plaintiff claimed Defendant Stanbic Bank, a Kenyan corporation, breached its fiduciary duty in a fraudulent gold purchase transaction in Kenya. Jurisdiction over Stanbic Bank in New Jersey was alleged to be based upon the bank’s maintenance of a New York bank account with a Multinational Investment Bank (Germany), which has offices in New Jersey. The court disagreed, finding that even though Stanbic Bank conducted frequent business through the account, maintaining a bank account in New York could not establish that the defendant had “purposefully availed” itself of the privileges of conducting business in New Jersey.