Fuld v. PLO: Argument Day!
Today, the Supreme Court is hearing oral argument in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization. The petition asks whether the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act of 2019 (PSJVTA) violates the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause by declaring that the PLO has consented to personal jurisdiction based on specified conduct. TLB’s prior coverage…
Continue ReadingFuld Preview: Professor Briefs
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization. Fuld raises two interrelated issues: (1) Does the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act (PSJVTA) provide consent-based personal jurisdiction consistent with Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co.?; and (2) What are the differences (if any) between the…
Continue ReadingFuld Preview: AALS Panel on Mallory and More
Next week, the Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation Organization. TLB’s prior coverage of Fuld can be found here. Among the key issues in Fuld is whether the Promoting Security and Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act’s scheme for consent-based personal jurisdiction is constitutional. In 2023, the Supreme Court decided…
Continue ReadingCC/Devas (Mauritius) Limited v. Antrix Corp.: International Arbitration and Constitutional Avoidance
I suspect that CC/Devas (Mauritius) Limited v. Antrix Corp. Ltd. caught the eye of the Supreme Court because of an interesting constitutional question: Does the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment apply in civil suits brought against foreign states in U.S. courts? More than thirty years ago, Justice Scalia, writing for a unanimous Court…
Continue ReadingArbitration Enforcement and Consent
This Term, the Supreme Court will hear a case that could have profound ramifications for international arbitration: CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix Corp. Ltd. The petitioners are seeking to enforce an arbitration award they won against a state-owned company in India. The district court enforced the award, relying on the New York Convention and the…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit Revives Case by Former Saudi Official with Ties to U.S. Intelligence
Dr. Saad Aljabri, a former Saudi official who lives in Canada, sued Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (“MBS”) and other defendants, alleging that they tracked him down and tried to kill him because of his relationship to the United States and to the former Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. As covered at TLB, federal district…
Continue ReadingSuccessor Jurisdiction and Anti-Terrorism Litigation
Transnational litigation often presents tricky questions of personal jurisdiction. Ongoing litigation in New York arising out of rocket attacks by Hizbollah does so in spades. This post reviews the recent New York Court of Appeals decision in Lelchook v. Société Générale de Banque au Liban SAL, answering a certified question posed by the Second Circuit…
Continue ReadingTransnational Corporate Accountability Through American Corporate Law
To those who view the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) as a beacon of American justice for foreign victims of corporate misconduct, the landscape looks bleak. In the latest ATS case decided in 2021, the Supreme Court held in Nestlé USA, Inc. v. Doe that plaintiffs, who were allegedly trafficked as children to engage in slave…
Continue ReadingNinth Circuit Gets Tangled Up in Minimum Contacts and Due Process
Do the Fifth Amendment’s due process protections require minimum contacts? And do those protections apply to foreign states sued under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA)? Those are the fundamental questions on which Ninth Circuit judges offered differing approaches as they resolved a recent petition for rehearing en banc. Regular TLB readers may recall that…
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