A Lebanese bank is urging the U.S. Supreme Court to review the Second Circuit's finding that it is subject to the personal jurisdiction of New York courts on claims over alleged assistance to Hezbollah by a bank it acquired, a decision that it says "entrenches a deep conflict among the lower courts."

Société Générale de Banque au Liban SAL argued in a certiorari petition on Thursday that the Second Circuit's decision last summer departs from Supreme Court precedent stating that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a defendant must rest on either the defendant's own suit-related contacts with the forum state or its own "continuous and systematic" affiliations that render it essentially at home there.

The bank, referred to in the litigation as SGBL, told the justices that it operates exclusively within Lebanon's borders and maintains no U.S. offices, branches or bank accounts. Relying on guidance from New York's highest court, the Second Circuit nevertheless concluded that there was personal jurisdiction over SGBL because of its acquisition of Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL, or LCB.

LCB is accused in the litigation of providing extensive banking services to Hezbollah in the years leading up to its rocket attacks in Israel in 2006. The suit claims LCB entered into a correspondent banking relationship with a New York bank that, among other things, allowed it to facilitate transactions in U.S. dollars rather than in other currencies.

SGBL argued in its petition that the Second Circuit's decision "countenances jurisdiction based entirely on what LCB — not SGBL — did in New York, before SGBL acquired LCB's assets and liabilities." The bank said that although the approach taken by the Second Circuit has been used in three circuits and three states, it "squarely conflicts" with the decisions of six other circuits and two other states.

"Foreign purchasers in international transactions — with no U.S. nexus whatsoever — now face unpredictable, near automatic exposure to American jurisdiction predicated solely on a seller's past contacts with U.S. forums," the petition said. "That cannot be the law."

The Second Circuit ruling reversed a district court's dismissal of the lawsuit against SGBL filed by victims of the Hezbollah rocket attacks.

The lower court tossed the suit on the grounds that SGBL's purchase of LCB did not result in SGBL inheriting its predecessor's status for purposes of personal jurisdiction because it wasn't a merger.

But the Second Circuit turned to an answer it had received from the New York Court of Appeals stating that an entity that acquires another entity's liabilities and assets inherits its status for purposes of personal jurisdiction even if there is no merger.

The appeals court further held that the exercise of personal jurisdiction by New York "comports with federal due process principles" for several reasons, including that "it was foreseeable at the time of the acquisition that SGBL would become subject to the exercise of jurisdiction in New York, such that SGBL should reasonably have anticipated that possibility."

The litigation was brought by 21 U.S. citizens hurt in the attacks and the family of one person who was killed. They allege that LCB provided extensive financial services to Hezbollah before the attacks.

That included millions of dollars in wire transfers that LCB allegedly facilitated through a New York-based correspondent bank.

In 2011, the U.S. Department of the Treasury designated LCB a "primary money laundering concern" based on its assistance to Hezbollah. That same year, LCB reached a purchase agreement with SGBL, under which SGBL paid $580 million for LCB's assets and liabilities.

The plaintiffs sued SGBL in 2019 in New York federal court, saying SGBL inherited LCB's jurisdictional status and is subject to personal jurisdiction there because it "assumed and bears successor liability for LCB's liability to the plaintiffs."

Counsel for the parties did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

The plaintiffs were represented in the Second Circuit by Michael Radine and Gary M. Osen of Osen LLC.

SGBL is represented by Michael H. McGinley, Brian A. Kulp, Tamer Mallat and Julia L. Shea of Dechert LLP and John D. Ashcroft, Michael J. Sullivan and Brian J. Leske of Ashcroft Law Firm LLC.

The case is Société Générale de Banque au Liban SAL v. Ester Lelchook et al., case number 25-983, in the Supreme Court of the United States.