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 ReadingDoes 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 ReadingThe 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 ReadingInterlocutory Appeals and State Sponsors of Terrorism
In a decision only lawyers could love, the Second Circuit held on September 3, 2024, that it lacked appellate jurisdiction over an interlocutory appeal by the Republic of Sudan brought in a multidistrict litigation (MDL) arising out of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The key issue is when the state-sponsored terrorism exception to…
Continue ReadingChoice 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 ReadingD.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 ReadingGovernor Newsom Signs Holocaust Art Bill
Yesterday, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2867 into law. The bill provides that California law applies in suits brought by a California resident involving the theft of art or other personal property during the Holocaust or other political persecutions. Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel introduced AB 2867 in response to the Ninth Circuit’s decision earlier this…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit Rejects FSIA Waiver Exception to Uphold Immunity of Sovereign-Owned Property
In a recent decision, Bainbridge Fund Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina, the D.C. Circuit rejected a judgment creditor’s attempt to attach and execute upon the Chancery Annex, a building owned by Argentina in Washington, D.C. Argentina’s creditors have chased it for two decades, since the beginning of its sovereign debt crisis, to varying degrees of…
Continue ReadingD.C. Circuit Limits Jurisdiction over Foreign States in Breach of Contract Claims
Circuit courts have split on the issue of what is required for a breach of contract to have a “direct effect” in the United States for the purposes of the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA) (a primer on foreign sovereign immunity is available here). Rulings in the Seventh and Eleventh Circuits impose a “place of…
Continue ReadingNinth Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc in Cassirer
The legal saga surrounding the Cassirer family’s attempt to reclaim a Camille Pissarro painting seized by the Nazis has taken another step. Litigation in Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation has bounced among the Central District of California, the Ninth Circuit, the California Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court of the United States. (For more coverage…
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