Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act

Cassirer Plaintiffs Ask Supreme Court to GVR

On Friday, the plaintiffs in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation filed a cert petition asking the Supreme Court to grant, vacate, and remand (GVR) the Ninth Circuit’s decision in light of new California legislation mandating the application of California law to the merits of the case. It would be standard practice for the Court to…

Continue Reading

Hungary v. Simon Offers Supreme Court Stark Choice

(Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security.) On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Hungary v. Simon, a case brought by Holocaust survivors under the expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). In 1944, Hungary rounded up Jews and transported them by train to death camps, expropriating their property…

Continue Reading

What Deference to the Executive in Halkbank Should Have Looked Like

As previously reported, the Second Circuit issued its opinion in United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi (Halkbank) on October 22, 2024, addressing the deference owed to the executive branch’s determination that Halkbank, a Turkish state-owned bank, is not immune from criminal prosecution for violating U.S. sanctions on Iran. Similar questions of deference to the executive…

Continue Reading

Second Circuit Holds for the Government in Halkbank Remand

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit has issued its opinion in U.S. v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi (Halkbank) following the Supreme Court’s decision to remand the case for further consideration of common law immunity issues. The same panel of Second Circuit judges held for the government the first time it heard the case…

Continue Reading

U.S. and Foreign Litigation Relating to the Events in Gaza

High profile cases against Israel and Germany have been bought before the International Court of Justice, alleging violations of international law with respect to events in Gaza following the October 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas. The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking five warrants of arrest against Israelis and Hamas leaders for war…

Continue Reading

Transnational Litigation at the Supreme Court, October Term 2024

Today is the first day of the Supreme Court’s October Term. This post briefly discusses four transnational litigation cases in which the Court has already granted cert, as well as several others that are in the pipeline and could be decided this Term. Readers can also consult our Supreme Court page. Cases in which the…

Continue Reading

Does the New York Convention Apply to Investor-State Awards?

On August 9, 2024, in Zhongshan Fucheng Industrial Investment Co. v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, the D.C. Circuit held that Nigeria was not immune from suit to enforce an arbitral award for a Chinese investor under a bilateral investment treaty. The U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) has an exception to state immunity for actions…

Continue Reading

The Burden of Proving Foreign Sovereign Immunity

The Supreme Court has granted cert in Republic of Hungary v. Simon and will soon hear oral argument, likely in December. The principal question is how to interpret “property exchanged for such property” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s (FSIA) expropriation exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3). But the three issues before the Court also include…

Continue Reading

Choice of Law in Terrorism Cases Redux

On September 16, 2024, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Senior Judge Richard J. Leon) decided Messina v. Syrian Arab Republic. This case is the latest in a long series brought by victims of state-sponsored terrorism in the District of Columbia. In a pair of prior posts, I argued that the courts’…

Continue Reading

D.C. Circuit Remands Helms-Burton Case Against Cimex

Exxon (then Standard Oil) owned several subsidiaries in Cuba that were expropriated without compensation by the Cuban government in 1960. In 1996, Congress enacted the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act (CLDS), which permits suits by U.S. plaintiffs against those who traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban government. Exxon has sued Cuban state-owned companies…

Continue Reading

Ingrid (Wuerth) Brunk

Vanderbilt Law School
ingrid.wuerth@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

Zachary D. Clopton

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law
zclopton@law.northwestern.eduEmail

Gary Born

Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP
Bio | Posts

Robert Kry

MoloLamken LLP
Bio | Posts

Luana Matoso

Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Bio | Posts

Curtis A. Bradley

University of Chicago Law School
Bio | Posts

Pamela K. Bookman

Fordham University School of Law
Bio | Posts

Matthew Salavitch

Fordham Law School
Bio | Posts

Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Bio | Posts

Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
Bio | Posts