New BCCI Settlement Plan May Be Near

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.

An earlier settlement plan for BCCI depositors was shot down by a Luxembourg judge last year as too favorable to BCCI’s majority shareholders, the government and ruling family of Abu Dhabi.

The new agreement was finalized in discussions over the weekend between the accounting firm Touche Ross, BCCI’s court-appointed liquidators, and Abu Dhabi, a source familiar with the negotiations who spoke on condition of anonymity said Sunday.

The step is significant for the estimated 250,000 BCCI depositors in Europe, Africa and elsewhere who haven’t been able to gain access to their accounts since the bank was shut down three years ago this month.

The framework of the latest agreement, reached in Zurich in March, provides that the Abu Dhabi shareholders contribute $1.8 billion to a global settlement fund.