Recent Cases

The $24 Billion Judgment Against China in Missouri’s COVID Suit

On March 7, 2025, Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. (Eastern District of Missouri) entered a default judgment for more than $24 billion against the People’s Republic of China and eight other Chinese defendants for hoarding personal protective equipment (PPE) during the early days of the COVID pandemic in violation of federal and state antitrust laws….

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Cassirer’s Case Continues

Regular TLB readers will be familiar with David Cassirer’s long-running suit to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro, which the Nazis stole from his great-grandmother, from a museum owned by the government of Spain. The case turns on choice of law. Under Spanish law, an owner acquires good title through possession for a period of…

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Devas v. Antrix: Headed back to the Ninth Circuit?

On Monday, the Supreme Court held oral argument in Devas v. Antrix to decide “whether plaintiffs must prove minimum contacts before federal courts may assert personal jurisdiction over foreign states sued under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).” Minimum contacts between the defendant and the United States might be required as a matter of statutory…

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District Court Holds that Serving Chinese Defendants by Email is Prohibited

My posts on TLB often criticize judicial opinions. Today, for a change, I’d like to celebrate a district court decision addressing the thorny question of email service under the Hague Service Convention that gets the answer exactly right. In Flying Heliball, LLC v. Zero Zero Robotics, Inc., Judge Fred W. Slaughter (Central District of California)…

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Supreme Court Narrows the FSIA’s Expropriation Exception (Again)

(Editor’s Note: This article also appears in Just Security.) Last Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Republic of Hungary v. Simon. Writing for a unanimous Court, Justice Sonia Sotomayor held that commingling the proceeds of expropriated property with other government funds, which are then used for commercial activity in the United States, is not enough…

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First Circuit Argument Weighs Constitutionality of TVPA

Last month, the First Circuit (Judge Lara Montecalvo, presiding, with retired Justice Stephen Breyer and Senior Judge Sandra Lynch) heard oral argument in Boniface v. Viliena. Viliena, a Haitian national who has been a legal permanent resident of the United States since 2008, is challenging a $15.5 million jury award under the Torture Victim Protection…

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Helms-Burton’s Statute of Repose

Helms-Burton plaintiffs just can’t seem to catch a break. They have struggled to establish personal jurisdiction over foreign defendants, run into issues of foreign sovereign immunity, and found that their property rights have expired. Now, the Second Circuit has held that the Helms-Burton Act’s statute of repose blocks claims more than two years old. Congress…

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Foreign States are “Persons”: CC/Devas v. Antrix Amicus Brief

The Supreme Court may soon resolve an important constitutional question: whether foreign states are “persons” entitled to Fifth Amendment due process. For those who engage seriously with the text, history, and structure of the Constitution, there is a ready answer: yes, foreign states are “persons.” The scope of the “process” to which foreign states are…

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Cisco’s Cert Petition

Last Friday, January 31, 2025, Cisco Systems filed a petition for certiorari asking the Supreme Court to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Doe v. Cisco Systems, Inc. (2023), a decision holding that claims of aiding and abetting may be brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) and Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). As more…

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CC/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…

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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

Robin Effron

Brooklyn Law School
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Scott Dodson

UC Law – San Francisco
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Aaron D. Simowitz

Willamette University College of Law
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Hannah Buxbaum

Indiana University Maurer School of Law
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Paul MacMahon

LSE Law School
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Satjit Singh Chhabra

Khaitan and Co
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Keshav Somani

Khaitan and Co.
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Kartikey Mahajan

Khaitan and Co.
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Paul B. Stephan

University of Virginia School of Law
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Caroline Spencer

Vanderbilt Law School
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