A Win for Helms-Burton Plaintiffs, But Potential Loss for US Companies

On July 30, 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated a district court’s decision dismissing José Ramón López Regueiro’s case against American Airlines and LATAM Airlines under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.  The court of appeals remanded, holding that the district court’s interpretation of the citizenship prerequisites in Helm-Burton conflicted with the explicit wording of the statute. This decision is more good news for Helms-Burton plaintiffs, but it also increases the risk that U.S. corporations will be held liable under the Act.

Background

Congress enacted the Helms-Burton Act (“Act”) on March 12, 1996, to provide compensation to U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated by Cuba during the Castro regime. Title III of the Act established a private right of action enabling United States nationals to initiate lawsuits against third parties involved in trafficking confiscated property. This private right of action was suspended for several decades by presidential decree, but President Trump lifted this suspension in 2019. Shortly thereafter, Regueiro filed suit, asserting that the Castro regime had expropriated an airport inherited from his father and that the defendant, American Airlines, later engaged in trafficking activities by operating flights to and from the airport.

American Airlines moved to dismiss. It argued that Title III of the Helms-Burton Act required that the property owner be a U.S. national at the time of confiscation and that the claimant be a U.S. national when they acquired the interest in the property. The district court agreed and dismissed the case because the property was not confiscated from a U.S. national, the plaintiff was not a U.S. national when he acquired the claim, and his father was not a U.S. national when the airport was confiscated. The court did not reach the defendant’s additional argument that the plaintiff failed to state a claim because he is a shareholder in the company that owns the airport, but not the owner of the airport.

Helms-Burton and Nationality

The Eleventh Circuit conducted a de novo review of the district court’s statutory interpretation and issued a unanimous opinion vacating the district court’s order and remanding for further proceedings. The Court organized its discussion into three topics: (i) U.S. citizenship requirement of the original owner; (ii) U.S. citizenship of the plaintiff and the U.S. citizenship at the time of acquisition; and (iii) whether a shareholder is an owner.

“Any” U.S. Citizen

In evaluating the Act’s citizenship requirement, the court began with the statutory text, emphasizing the importance of interpreting the language in “context and with a view to their place in the overall statutory scheme.” The court then identified five explicit requirements for a Helm-Burton claim: “(1) the Cuban government confiscated property on or after January 1, 1959; (2) a third party trafficked in the property after November 1, 1996; (3) the plaintiff is a United States national; (4) the plaintiff ‘owns an interest (i.e., has a claim)’ in the confiscated and trafficked-in property; and (5) if the property was confiscated before March 12, 1996, the plaintiff acquired his interest in the property before that date.” The court reasoned that these statutory requirements do not mandate that the plaintiff (or original owner) was a U.S. national at the time of the confiscation. Moreover, the Act itself defines a U.S. national as “any” U.S. citizen, and following the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in United States v. Caniff, the court emphasized that the word “any” should be given a broad interpretation.

Turning to whether the plaintiff had to be a U.S. national at the time they acquired an interest in the property, the court went on to hold that the Act’s language, viewed in conjunction with its purpose and its amendments to the Cuban Claims Act, does not impose a continuous nationality requirement. A claimant’s eligibility to sue under Title III is determined by their status as a “United States national” at the time of filing, rather than at the time their property was confiscated. This reading is affirmed by the Act’s provisions allowing the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission to validate claims even when the plaintiff was not a U.S. national at the time of confiscation. In other words, Congress wanted to give Cuban Americans a remedy once they became U.S. nationals, however late that happened. This interpretation broadens the claimant pool so that assets expropriated from non-U.S. nationals, such as Regueiro’s father’s airport, now fall within Title III’s reach. In effect, the decision transforms what had been a narrow cause of action into a far more sweeping basis for litigation.

Building on that conclusion, the court then addressed the plaintiff’s nationality acquiring the property interest. Citing both the explicit language of the statute and its precedents in Fernandez v. Seaboard Marine Ltd. and Garcia-Bengochea v. Carnival Corp., the Eleventh Circuit clarified that the critical temporal requirement is the date of acquisition, not the date of U.S. naturalization. By decoupling acquisition from naturalization, the court broadened the scope of Title III, confirming that once a U.S. national acquires an interest in confiscated property, the right to sue attaches regardless of when citizenship was obtained.

Shares are Ownership

American Airlines provided an alternative argument for dismissal based on Congress’s purported intention to protect real property owners, not shareholders. Regueiro merely has an ownership interest in the company that owns the Cuban airport (CAISA) and, therefore, pursuant to this argument, he cannot make a Title III claim. The court of appeals reaffirmed its recent decision in Fernandez v. Seaboard Marine Ltd., which interpreted the Act as designed to protect those who had any interest in confiscated property – including shareholders.

Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Regueiro demonstrates exactly what Ingrid Brunk and Bill Dodge previously noted: Helms-Burton litigation is concentrated against U.S. companies that are subject to the general jurisdiction in the U.S. judicial system. The irony is striking: instead of deterring foreign investors from doing business in Cuba, Helms-Burton is ensnaring U.S. airlines, cruise lines, and hotel companies. As Brunk and Dodge argued, Title III’s enforcement “will continue to be concentrated against US companies subject to the general jurisdiction of the US courts.”

But there is more at play than jurisdictional irony. As Dodge has discussed, Title III also contains a statute of repose – a provision barring any action more than two years after trafficking has ceased. In Moreira v. Societe Generale, the Second Circuit confirmed that this provision is strictly enforced and cannot be tolled even during the prior presidential suspensions of Title III. Thus, claims cannot be brought for trafficking that ended before May 2017, as the statute of repose had already expired two years before President Trump lifted the suspension.

Taken together, these developments reveal a troubling paradox: Helms-Burton may be backfiring in two critical ways. On one hand, procedural doctrines and the statute of repose are rendering the Act increasingly impotent. But, on the other hand, when claims do proceed, they are disproportionately ensnaring U.S. companies, not the foreign investment the statute was meant to deter. Regueiro thus exposes a law that, instead of serving as a foreign policy tool, has become a double-edged sword: limited in scope, yet punishing at home. If this decision reflects the road ahead, the “revival” of Helms-Burton may end up being less a strategic victory than a self-inflicted wound.