District Court Quashes Substituted Service on Chinese Defendant
In a recent decision, Topstone Communications, Inc. v. Chenyi Xu, a federal court in Texas (Judge Keith Ellison) held that a plaintiff headquartered in Texas must serve defendants based in China by using the Hague Service Convention. The opinion provides a good analysis of how both substituted service on a state official and service by email…
Continue ReadingCourt Holds that ATS Claims for Medical Experimentation Are Not Impermissibly Extraterritorial
In a recent decision, Estate of Alvarez v. The Johns Hopkins University, a federal district court held that claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) based on nonconsensual medical experiments in Guatemala were not impermissibly extraterritorial. Although the district court ultimately granted summary judgment for the defendants on other grounds, the decision is significant because…
Continue ReadingHavlish Plaintiffs File a Potentially Misleading Brief Claiming Entitlement to Afghan Central Bank Assets
The 2021 return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan has led to litigation in the United States over the assets of the Afghan Central Bank (“DAB”). As I explained in an earlier post, an executive order by President Biden froze about $7.0 billion in DAB assets held in New York. A license from the…
Continue ReadingThe Role of the FCPA in Transnational Litigation
Professor Maggie Gardner’s thought-provoking post on the role of the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) in forum non conveniens analysis in IMSS v. Stryker and IMSS v. Zimmer Biomet Holdings led me to consider how the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) factors into these cases. Interestingly, both defendant corporations, Stryker Corporation and Zimmer Biomet Holdings,…
Continue ReadingSecond Circuit Rejects Act of State Doctrine in Antitrust Case
In a recent decision, Celestin v. Caribbean Air Mail, Inc., the Second Circuit held that the act of state doctrine does not bar U.S. antitrust claims based on the acts of a foreign government. Although the Second Circuit is right, its decision diverges from the decisions of other circuits that have applied the doctrine as…
Continue ReadingCVSG in Usoyan v. Turkey: Can Turkey Use Force in the United States to Protect Its President?
A violent clash in Washington, D.C. between Turkish security forces and protestors has led to civil litigation with interesting questions about the authority of foreign security details and the immunity to which foreign governments are entitled. Turkey has petitioned for certiorari, and the Supreme Court has shown an interest in the case by calling for…
Continue ReadingCan Corporations Claim Foreign Official Immunity?
In a recent cert petition, the Israeli company NSO Group asks the Supreme Court to consider whether corporations are entitled to conduct-based immunity when they act as agents of foreign governments. The Ninth Circuit answered no to that question, reasoning that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) comprehensively covers the immunity of corporations like NSO….
Continue ReadingForeign Sovereign Immunity and Choice of Law—State, not Federal
In Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, the Supreme Court unanimously held that, in adjudicating state-law claims against a foreign state or instrumentality under one of the exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. § 1602, et seq., a federal court must apply the choice-of-law rules of the forum state rather than federal…
Continue ReadingSecond Circuit Holds that Forum Non Conveniens Applies Under the FSIA
In Aenergy, S.A. v. Republic of Angola, the Second Circuit held that the standard doctrine of forum non conveniens applies to suits against foreign states under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). This holding is consistent with what the D.C. Circuit has said about forum non conveniens in FSIA cases. The Second Circuit’s decision would likely…
Continue ReadingWhat Should Happen Next in Cassirer?
Most of the procedural questions that arise in domestic litigation have a counterpart in transnational litigation. In Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, the Supreme Court confronted the transnational counterpart to Klaxon v. Stentor Electric Manufacturing Co., a much-debated choice-of-law case decided in 1941. As Justice Kagan noted in her opinion for a unanimous Court, “[a]lthough…
Continue Reading