William S. Dodge

Using TLB to Teach International Business Transactions (2025 Update)

As the fall semester gets underway, we are updating our posts on using resources on TLB to teach various classes. This post discusses International Business Transactions (IBT). Although TLB focuses on litigation and IBT focuses on transactions, there is a great deal of overlap. The most obvious examples are contractual clauses that plan for dispute resolution,…

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D.C. Circuit Holds that District Court Must Decide Jurisdictional Facts under FSIA for Itself

In a recent decision, Hulley Enterprises Ltd. v. Russian Federation, the D.C. Circuit held that a district court must decide for itself any “jurisdictional facts” necessary to establish subject matter jurisdiction in suits against foreign states under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The plaintiffs sought to enforce an arbitral award against Russia. The FSIA’s…

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First Circuit Remands Constitutionality of the TVPA to District Court

In Boniface v. Viliena, a Massachusetts jury found a former Haitian mayor liable under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) for extrajudicial killing, attempted extrajudicial killing, and torture, awarding the three plaintiffs $15.5 million in compensatory and punitive damages. On appeal to the First Circuit, the defendant’s principal arguments were (1) that the TVPA does…

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Fifth Circuit Holds that TPVA Does Not Abrogate Foreign Official Immunity

The Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA) creates a civil cause of action for torture and extrajudicial killing done under color of foreign law. In Does 1-5 v. Obiano, the widows of five men killed by the Nigerian military during peaceful rallies for Biafran independence sued Willie Obiano, the former governor of the state where the…

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Court Allows Claims of Forced Labor to Build World Cup Stadiums

On June 26, 2025, in F.C. v. Jacobs Solutions Inc., Magistrate Judge Cyrus Y. Chung (District of Colorado) partly granted and partly denied a motion to dismiss claims against U.S. companies under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) alleging their participation in a venture that used forced labor to build stadiums in Qatar for…

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Nigerian Judgment Satisfies Arizona’s Reciprocity Requirement

On July 10, 2025, in Ejeh v. Ali, the Arizona Court of Appeals recognized a Nigerian judgment, finding that Nigeria’s foreign judgments law satisfied Arizona’s reciprocity requirement. Reciprocity requirements are rare in state laws governing foreign judgments—Arizona is one of just five states to have such a requirement. The decision thus affords an opportunity to…

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Fuld’s Implications for the FSIA (and Other Federal Statutes)

In Fuld v. PLO, the U.S. Supreme Court held that “the Fifth Amendment does not impose the same jurisdictional limitations as the Fourteenth.” This means that Congress may authorize federal courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants that state courts may not constitutionally reach. In Fuld, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the Promoting Security…

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District Court Orders Argentina to Transfer Shares to Satisfy Judgments

On June 30, 2025, Judge Loretta A. Preska (Southern District of New York) issued orders in two cases, directing Argentina to transfer shares in YPF S.A., a state-owned energy company, to a New York bank to satisfy two judgments. Bainbridge Fund Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina arose from Argentina’s default on certain bonds in 2001,…

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State Presumptions Against Extraterritoriality Apply to State Statutes

At TLB, we write a lot about extraterritoriality in general and about the federal presumption against extraterritoriality in particular. For the last three decades, the federal presumption has been the principal tool that courts have used to determine the geographic scope of federal statutes. But what if the statute in question is a state statute?…

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Serving Process on Russia Through “Diplomatic Channels” Under the FSIA

A party suing a foreign state in federal or state court must comply with the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). The FSIA governs not only when a foreign state is immune from suit and from execution, but also how a foreign state must be served with process. Section 1608(a) provides four possible methods of service…

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Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.brunk@vanderbilt.eduEmail

William Dodge

George Washington University Law School
william.dodge@law.gwu.eduEmail

Maggie Gardner

Cornell Law School
mgardner@cornell.eduEmail

John F. Coyle

University of North Carolina School of Law
jfcoyle@email.unc.eduEmail

Victoria Pino

Vanderbilt Law School
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Robert Kry

MoloLamken LLP
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Rinat Gareev

Whitecliff Management
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León Castellanos-Jankiewicz

Institute for International and European Law
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
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Maryam Jamshidi

University of Colorado Law School
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