Before the publication of the series, Sehnaoui and his father, Nabil, declined the newspaper’s request for an interview. They then filed an urgent petition before Beirut’s Court of Urgent Matters seeking to prevent publication of the investigation. The request was rejected because prior restraint on journalistic content violates the freedom of expression guaranteed by the Lebanese Constitution. The legal battle, however, did not end there. After the third installment was published, Sehnaoui returned to the same court, requesting that the series be halted and the published articles be removed, arguing that they had harmed him and damaged his reputation. A ruling on the new request is expected today or tomorrow.
At the same time, This Is Beirut, which the investigation identifies as part of Sehnaoui’s media network, published an article titled “An Obituary: L’Orient-Le Jour as We Knew It.” Framed as a eulogy for the newspaper, the article accused L’Orient-Le Jour of replacing investigative journalism with insinuation, spectacle, and the production of a five-part series. Rather than systematically challenging the investigation’s central findings, it focused its attack on the newspaper itself, questioning its professionalism and historical standing.
From both a professional and legal standpoint, anyone named in a journalistic investigation has the right to respond, seek a correction, or turn to the courts if they believe their rights have been violated. There is, however, a significant difference between exercising the right of reply and attempting to halt publication, remove an entire investigation, and then use media outlets within the same sphere of influence to attack the organization that published it. When the debate shifts from the facts to pressuring journalists and from answering allegations to undermining the newspaper’s legitimacy, the issue extends far beyond Antoun Sehnaoui. It raises a broader question. What remains of the media’s ability to hold wealthy and powerful figures accountable if the price of investigating their activities is a barrage of lawsuits, smear campaigns, and sustained efforts to exhaust and intimidate the press?
Five Episodes to Deconstruct the “Man in the Shadows”
The investigation was produced by journalists Caroline Hayek and Cyril Niem. It was first published in French as a five-part series and later in English, translated by Sahar Ghoussoub. According to L’Orient-Le Jour, the reporting is based on documents and evidence obtained by the organization Forbidden Stories.
The investigation began with a central question. How did the Chairman and CEO of SGBL become a figure operating behind so many of Lebanon’s defining issues, from the banking crisis and the distribution of its losses to the media, politics, and relations with Israel, while so little is publicly known about his networks of influence and political ambitions?
The first installment begins within the Sehnaoui family itself. It traces the origins of the family’s banking empire, founded by the elder Antoun Sehnaoui, and follows the transfer of its legacy to his nephews, Maurice and Nabil. It then examines how the rivalry between the two brothers evolved into a struggle for control of the bank and the position of heir. The investigation portrays Antoun Sehnaoui Jr. as a young man unwilling to wait his turn. After returning from the United States, he reportedly clashed with his uncle Maurice before joining forces with his father in what the investigation describes as a coup within SGBL.
Maurice Sehnaoui told the newspaper that his brother “made his life miserable” during board meetings. When the younger Antoun sought a position within the group that matched his ambitions, his uncle reportedly replied, “I told him to speak to the Human Resources department.” After the French banking group Société Générale reduced its stake in SGBL in 2005, Nabil Sehnaoui, backed by the Kamel family, succeeded in taking control of the bank and sidelining Maurice. As the investigation quotes Maurice saying, “My brother had wanted my position for a long time, but for his son.”
The second installment examines Sehnaoui’s years of rapid ascent. He became CEO of SGBL in 2007 at the age of 35 and subsequently expanded his business interests into the United States, France, Monaco, and Switzerland. A banking source told the newspaper that one of Sehnaoui’s defining traits is surrounding himself with prominent figures who lend credibility to his ventures, while simultaneously placing loyal associates throughout his companies to ensure what the source described as “absolute control.”
The investigation also links Sehnaoui’s rise to his close relationship with the financial establishment led by former Banque du Liban Governor Riad Salameh. After the U.S. Treasury accused the Lebanese Canadian Bank in 2011 of involvement in money laundering networks linked to Hezbollah, SGBL was selected to acquire its assets. Sehnaoui retained former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft to conduct an independent review of the bank’s accounts, which led to the closure of about 200 accounts deemed suspicious. According to the investigation, the move earned him praise from the U.S. Treasury and helped strengthen his network of influential contacts in Washington.
The relationship with Salameh’s financial system reached its peak during the 2016 financial engineering operations. According to a document from Lebanon’s Banking Control Commission reviewed by the newspaper, SGBL ranked second among the banks that benefited from the scheme, generating profits of approximately $910 million at the official exchange rate in effect at the time. According to the investigation, the bank had heavily bet on the financial system engineered by Salameh just before it began to unravel.
From Financial Engineering Profits to the Depositors’ Crisis
The third installment examines SGBL’s role in Lebanon’s financial collapse. The investigation quotes a financial expert as saying that the bank was “at the forefront” of efforts, with the support of Riad Salameh, to pressure the government into abandoning plans to restructure the country’s public debt. At the same time, Lebanese banks were selling Eurobonds to foreign investors, shifting part of the risk onto the broader financial system.
One of the investigation’s most significant findings concerns events in September 2019, just weeks before the October 17 uprising. SGBL was allowed to redeem a deposit held at Banque du Liban worth 254 billion Lebanese pounds, then equivalent to approximately $169 million, 28 years before its maturity, because it needed additional liquidity in Lebanese pounds. During the same month, Banque du Liban also extended SGBL a loan of nearly $1 billion, which was later repaid using “lollars,” bank deposits denominated in U.S. dollars that had lost a substantial portion of their real value.
When Lebanon’s financial system collapsed, depositors were denied access to their savings. The debate quickly shifted to who should bear the losses: the state, Banque du Liban, commercial banks and their shareholders, or the depositors themselves. The Association of Banks in Lebanon, along with SGBL, opposed restructuring plans that would have required bank shareholders to absorb losses before other creditors. As the largest shareholder in SGBL, Sehnaoui stood to incur some of the greatest losses had a comprehensive restructuring been implemented.
Daraj: From Exposing Banking Privileges to Fighting SLAPP Lawsuits
In the third installment, titled “Vanishing Billions and the Banks’ Wars,” L’Orient-Le Jour draws on an earlier Daraj investigation into the exceptional financial facilities SGBL received from Banque du Liban on the eve of Lebanon’s financial collapse. In September 2019, as the country’s liquidity crisis deepened, then Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh approved the early redemption of a 254 billion Lebanese-pound deposit held by SGBL, then worth approximately $169 million, 28 years before its scheduled maturity. Daraj also revealed that during the same month, Banque du Liban extended SGBL a loan of nearly $1 billion, which the bank later repaid using “lollars.” Because bank dollars had by then lost a significant portion of their value, the transaction ultimately proved highly profitable for SGBL.
The installment also revisits testimony first published by Daraj from activist Rudy Hanna, who said he was assaulted and threatened by a group of men after painting graffiti on the wall of an SGBL branch demanding that depositors be allowed to recover their savings. According to Hanna, the men warned him that the bank was “off limits.” He described them as “thugs,” not uniformed security personnel.
The fourth installment, “Antoun Sehnaoui’s Media and Political Network,” shifts from relying on Daraj‘s reporting to documenting the price the outlet says it has paid for its investigations. According to L’Orient-Le Jour, Daraj‘s newsroom has faced a series of lawsuits, some filed through third parties, following the publication of investigative reports and a critical profile of Sehnaoui. The newspaper quotes Daraj co-founder Alia Ibrahim as saying:
“These tactics do not intimidate us. But the repeated smear campaigns that we are forced to respond to, along with judicial proceedings designed to silence us, drain our energy, time, and resources. That is precisely what makes them so effective.”
The investigation also notes that Megaphone, Naqd, and L’Orient-Le Jour have likewise faced legal action brought by Sehnaoui’s lawyers.
Media, Members of Parliament, and a Unified Narrative
The fourth installment examines the media and political networks that, according to the investigation, Sehnaoui built around his interests. The network began with Executive magazine and expanded after Lebanon’s financial collapse with the launch of Ici Beyrouth, This Is Beirut, and Hona Lebanon, alongside close ties to prominent media figures and outlets.
One source from the media sector described Sehnaoui as “smart and charismatic. He likes working with the best people, knows how to win them over, and is willing to pay for talent.” A former journalist at Ici Beyrouth, however, said salaries were exceptionally high, but that some employees chose to leave once they realized they were working for what they considered “a propaganda outlet.”
According to the investigation, media organizations within Sehnaoui’s sphere consistently promoted a central narrative that former Central Bank Governor Riad Salameh and the commercial banks had become scapegoats. At the same time, the Lebanese state alone should bear responsibility for returning depositors’ funds.
On the political front, the investigation identifies a network of MPs reportedly close to Sehnaoui, including Jean Talouzian, Raji El Saad, and Ihab Matar. Some of them sit on Parliament’s Finance and Budget Committee, where proposals to restructure the banking sector and allocate financial losses have repeatedly stalled.
Israel and Ortagus
The fifth and final installment turns to the Sehnaoui family’s ideological background and its relationship with Israel. The investigation quotes Maurice Sehnaoui as saying that his brother, Nabil, grew particularly close to Israelis after the 1982 invasion of Lebanon and that his son, Antoun, “followed in his footsteps.” It also cites a person familiar with Antoun Sehnaoui who describes him as fascinated by Judaism, able to speak some Hebrew, and someone who “sees in Israel what Lebanon should have become.”
The investigation also examines Sehnaoui’s relationship with former U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus, who has publicly spoken of “generations of Lebanese Christian Zionists” in his family. However, according to a source close to U.S. policymaking circles quoted by the newspaper, the relationship raised concerns within the U.S. State Department. It was viewed with unease even by some pro-Israel circles.
The series concludes with a photograph of Sehnaoui and Ortagus seated alongside Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife at a dinner in Washington. While his supporters portray him as a man of peace willing to challenge long-standing taboos, his critics see him as a banker who avoided bearing the cost of Lebanon’s financial collapse before using his financial, media, and political influence to recast himself as a key player in the country’s future.
