D.C. Circuit Adopts Twelve-Year Statute of Limitations for Enforcing ICSID Awards
Last week, the D.C. Circuit held in Titan Consortium 1 v. Argentine Republic that suits brought in the District of Columbia to enforce arbitral awards issued by the International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (“ICSID”) are subject to a twelve-year statute of limitations. Both the rule and reasoning in Titan Consortium underscore the…
Continue ReadingEleventh Circuit Applies Fuld in Helms-Burton Case
On July 23, 2026, in Rodriguez v. Imperial Brands, PLC, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld the dismissal for lack of personal jurisdiction of claims against two British corporations under the Helms-Burton Act for trafficking in property expropriated by Cuba. The opinion is one of the first by a circuit court…
Continue ReadingFourth Circuit Affirms Extraterritorial Injunction in IP Dispute
The Fourth Circuit (Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III) recently affirmed an extraterritorial preliminary injunction in a cross-border intellectual property dispute. In dmarcian Inc. v. DMARC Advisor BV, the court engaged in distinct extraterritorial analyses of federal trademark law, federal trade secret law, and state tortious interference claims. It is a particularly well-written opinion worth reading…
Continue ReadingFourth Circuit Reaffirms Lack of Official Immunity for Jus Cogens Violations
On July 8, 2026, the Fourth Circuit held in Kuiper v. Reyes Mena that a former colonel in the Salvadoran Army is not immune from suit for the extrajudicial killings of Dutch journalists in 1982 during El Salvador’s civil war. Writing for a unanimous panel, Judge Paul V. Neimeyer reaffirmed the circuit’s holding in Yousuf…
Continue ReadingStrange Statutory Interpretation in Foreign Relations Law: The October 2025 Term
The back end of the Supreme Court’s October Term 2025 brought us three decisions in statutory cases dealing with foreign relations law. Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. explored the scope of the Helms Burton Act, a sanctions statute targeting Cuba. Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación Cimex, S.A. (Cuba) held that this statute…
Continue ReadingFourth Circuit Answers Civ Pro Hypothetical
Civil procedure professors love to gin up tricky hypotheticals to quiz 1Ls on the limits of diversity jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1332(a). The Fourth Circuit recently confronted a real-world scenario involving a dual-citizen LLC and the distinction between § 1332(a)(2) and § 1332(a)(3). In a decision destined to be cited in casebooks, the Fourth…
Continue ReadingSeventh Circuit Upholds Dismissal of TVPRA Claims Against Neil Gaiman on Forum Non Conveniens Grounds
On June 29, 2026, in Pavlovich v. Gaiman, the Seventh Circuit upheld the dismissal of claims against author Neil Gaiman for sex trafficking and forced labor under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) on grounds of forum non conveniens, concluding that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it held that New…
Continue ReadingDistrict Court Holds that Federal Destruction of Property Statute Is Not Extraterritorial
On December 21, 1988, a bomb planted onboard brought down Pam Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 more on the ground. By special agreement, two Libyan intelligence agents were tried for the bombing by a Scottish court sitting in the Netherlands. One was acquitted and the other…
Continue ReadingSupreme Court Says Helms-Burton Abrogates Foreign Sovereign Immunity
In Exxon Mobil Corp v. Corporación CIMEX, S.A. (Cuba), the Supreme Court held that the Helms-Burton Act abrogated the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities for suits brought under the Act. Plaintiffs may therefore pursue such suits whether or not they can satisfy one of the exceptions to immunity in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities…
Continue ReadingSupreme Court Decides Cisco and Cimex
Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down decisions in two significant transnational litigation cases. In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Doe, the Court held that federal courts may not recognize any new causes of action under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), “clos[ing] the door” on human rights litigation under the ATS and effectively overruling Sosa…
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