TLB’s Petitions to Watch at the Long Conference

Today the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court gather for their first conference before the official beginning of October Term 2023—what is colloquially known as the “long conference” because of the long list of petitions for certiorari on their agenda. We can expect an orders list within the next day or two with additional grants for the upcoming Term (and many more denials). TLB has been tracking four transnational disputes that are up for consideration:

• Falkbuilt Ltd. v. DIRTT Environmental Solutions, Inc. asks whether a federal court can use forum non conveniens to dismiss only some defendants from a case. (More coverage here.)
• Blenheim Capital Holdings Ltd. v. Lockheed Martin Corp. asks whether a government’s purchase of military equipment is a commercial activity for purposes of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s commercial activity exception. (More coverage here.)
• Laydon v. Cooperative Rabobank U.A. is a presumption-against-extraterritoriality case involving the Commodities Exchange Act. The plaintiff-petitioners challenge the Second Circuit’s Parkcentral precedent under which the domestic occurrence of a federal statute’s “focus” is a necessary but not sufficient condition for applying U.S. law to a transnational dispute. (More coverage here.)
• Elbaz v. United States also raises a presumption-against-extraterritoriality question but in the context of federal criminal law. The defendant-petitioner argues that her conviction involved an impermissible extraterritorial application of the wire fraud statute. (More coverage here.)

Last Term the Supreme Court decided two presumption-against-exterritoriality cases, arguably raising more questions than it answered. We will soon find out if it has the appetite for more.