2 Iraqi banks ordered to pay $70 million.

NEW YORK - The Commercial Bank of Kuwait has won a $70 million judgment against two Iraqi banks in a lawsuit involving $1 billion in claims.

Rogers & Wells, the New York law firm that represented Commercial Bank of Kuwait in its suit against the Iraqi central bank and the state-owned Rafidain Bank, said the judgment is one of the first since the Persian Gulf War to be issued over active Iraqi opposition.

The Kuwaiti bank was seeking $30 million plus interest from each of the Iraqi institutions to cover loan payments owed since Iraq's 1990 invasion. A similar suit by Bank of New York is pending.

The judgment was issued in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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