SDNY Stays Action Based on International Comity
Lower federal courts have developed several forms of abstention based on international comity. Some courts have adopted a doctrine of prescriptive comity abstention to dismiss federal statutory claims when facing a “true conflict” with foreign law. Some have embraced doctrines of adjudicative comity abstention that permit dismissals or stays of federal proceedings in favor of…
Continue ReadingAll I Want for Christmas (from the Federal Courts)
Rounding out this week’s posts by John Coyle and Bill Dodge, here’s my wish list for the lower federal courts (plus a bonus plea to the Supreme Court). Stop Violating Rule 4(f) and the Hague Service Convention Rule 4(f) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure authorizes service of process on defendants “at a place…
Continue ReadingDOJ Argues Against Turnover of Argentina’s Assets
On November 6, 2024, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York sent a letter to Judge Loretta A. Preska arguing against turnover of Argentina’s interests in YPF S.A., a state-owned energy company, to satisfy a breach of contract judgment. The $16.1 billion judgment in Petersen Energia Inversora, S.A.U. v. Argentine Republic arose…
Continue ReadingComity and Kleptocrats
To succeed in their trade, thieves need a place to stash their ill-gotten gains. Should the United States become a safe haven for international financial wrongdoing, shielding the proceeds of misdeeds whenever the thief brings corrupt government officials into the plot? Zhakiyanov v. Ogai, a recent decision of the Supreme Court of New York, indicates…
Continue ReadingConstitutionality of TVPA Challenged in First Circuit
As previously reported at TLB, a Massachusetts jury last year awarded $15.5 million in damages against Jean Morose Viliena for torture and extrajudicial killing under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA). Viliena was mayor of a town in Haiti where the three plaintiffs lived. The jury found him responsible for murdering the brother of one…
Continue ReadingEighth Circuit Rejects Argument for Foreign-Policy Abstention
On August 1, 2024, the Eighth Circuit issued its decision in Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corp., rejecting defendants’ argument that the case should be dismissed based on international comity. As Maggie Gardner has explained in greater detail here and here, the plaintiffs in Reid are more than 1,400 Peruvian citizens who suffered harm as…
Continue ReadingThe U.S. Takes the Fight Against Bribery to Foreign Officials
American companies, U.S. issuers, and persons in the United States have long been barred from bribing foreign officials under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). But until December 2023, no U.S. law directly penalized those foreign officials for soliciting or taking bribes. With the enactment of the Foreign Extortion Prevention Act (FEPA), buried deep within…
Continue ReadingThird Circuit Clarifies Comity Abstention Test
The Third Circuit recently clarified the appropriate test for deferring to foreign bankruptcy proceedings. The court’s opinion in Vertiv, Inc. v. Wayne Burt PTE, Ltd. is clear, correct, and helpful in disambiguating the different contexts in which other federal courts have referred to “international comity abstention” and adjudicatory comity. The Facts In January 2020, Vertiv,…
Continue ReadingOral Argument Recap: Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corp.
On Tuesday, the Eighth Circuit heard oral argument in Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corp., an ad hoc interlocutory appeal limited to the question of whether the district court should have abstained in that case based on foreign policy concerns. The facts of the case are described in a prior post. This post summarizes Tuesday’s…
Continue ReadingEighth Circuit Weighing Adoption of Foreign Relations Abstention
The Eighth Circuit will soon hear an interlocutory appeal to consider permitting abstention based on foreign relations concerns. In Reid v. Doe Run Resources Corp. (as the case is captioned on appeal), Peruvian citizens allege they were seriously harmed as children by toxic substances emitted by a metallurgical refining complex in Peru and that this…
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