Bank Of Credit And Commerce International

A federal judge has ordered a former Saudi government official to pay $1.16 billion in damages to the court-appointed liquidators of BCCI, a now-defunct foreign bank that was at the center of an international scandal. U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green ruled late Wednesday that Abdul Raouf Hasan Khalil, a Saudi businessman believed to be the biggest depositor in BCCI, conspired with bank officials in a fraudulent scheme that resulted in big losses to the Third World bank.

In a quiet end to an affair that once rocked the capital, venerable Washington insider Clark M. Clifford and his former law partner agreed to pay $5 million to settle civil fraud charges in the BCCI banking scandal.

The last two former Bank of Credit & Commerce International executives held in prison in the United Arab Emirates have been released but must remain in the country, judicial sources said.

A plan to repay Bank of Credit and Commerce International depositors and creditors, who have claims exceeding $10 billion, has cleared a torturous series of negotiations and is ready for presentation to creditors and courts in three countries, a source said.

A banker who oversaw the machinery of the vast Bank of Credit & Commerce International swindle pleaded guilty Friday to federal charges of bank fraud.

An investor group headed by Mexican billionaire Carlos Cabal Peniche has agreed to buy San Francisco-based Del Monte Foods Co. in a cash and debt transfer deal valued at close to $1 billion.