The Eleventh Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in favor of petitioner in an action under the International Child Abduction Remedies Act to recover fees and costs. The court held that respondent failed to establish under the Act that an award of necessary expenses could be clearly inappropriate. In this case, the record developed on the merits of the wrongful removal petition was replete with evidence contradicting respondent's good faith argument. Therefore, the court affirmed the award of attorney fees, costs and expenses in the total amount of $89,490.26. View "Rath v. Marcoski" on Justia Law

This case arose when Venezuela and two of its agencies seized all assets of an American drilling company's Venezuelan subsidiary. Both parent and subsidiary filed suit claiming that the expropriation of the subsidiary's business and assets without compensation violated international law. On remand from the Supreme Court, at issue was whether either company had alleged facts that were sufficient, if true, to establish that it had in fact suffered a taking in violation of international law. The DC Circuit held that only the American parent, not its Venezuelan subsidiary, had done so. The court held that the domestic-takings rule barred the subsidiary's expropriation claim where the subsidiary was considered a Venezuelan national under international law. In this case, the subsidiary was incorporated in Venezuela and had a legal identity distinct from that of its parent shareholders under local law. The court further held that, given the subsidiary's Venezuelan nationality, its takings claim against Venezuela was a matter of domestic, not international, law under the domestic-takings rule. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the subsidiary's claims, as well as the denial of defendants' motion to dismiss the parent's claims. View "Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. v. Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela" on Justia Law

Appellant, a dual citizen of the United States and Canada and incarcerated in the United States where he was convicted of a felony, sought a transfer under a treaty between the United States and Canada to a Canadian prison. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the complaint and held that the government's self-execution argument was non-jurisdictional and thus did not affect the court's subject matter jurisdiction to consider appellant's case under 28 U.S.C. 1331; even assuming the treaty was not self-executing, the government's position that appellant must rely exclusively on the implementing legislation was flawed, because the text and legislative history of the treaty and the legislation showed that the latter incorporated the substantive standards of the former, making those standards part of domestic law; the treaty provision on which appellant relied provides law to apply, although the scope of judicial review was narrow, limited to the terms of that provision and not reaching the correctness of the assessment or the outcome; and consistent with the narrow scope of judicial review, the denial of appellant's transfer was not arbitrary and capricious. View "Sluss v. DOJ" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the museum in an action brought by plaintiff to recover artwork that was taken by the Nazis from her faither-in-law. The panel held that the Dutch government's transfer of the paintings and its later decisions about the conveyance were "sovereign acts" requiring application of the act of state doctrine. The panel applied the act of state doctrine here, because the relief sought by plaintiff would necessitate the court's declaring invalid at least three official acts of the Dutch government performed within its own territory. The panel also held that exceptions to the act of state doctrine did not apply and the policies underlying the doctrine supported its application in this case. View "Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena" on Justia Law

United States nationals, victims of al Qaeda attacks in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam in 1998, filed suit against the French bank BNP Paribas for damages under the AntiTerrorism Act (ATA), alleging that the bank provided financial assistance to Sudan, which in turn funded and otherwise supported al Qaeda's attack. The DC Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the suit based on failure to state a claim, holding that the victims failed to adequately allege that they were injured "by reason of" the bank's acts and could not state a claim for relief based on a theory of primary liability under the ATA. The court also held that the ATA did not permit recovery for claims premised on aiding and abetting liability. View "Owens v. BNP Paribas, SA" on Justia Law

After the IRS refused to grant the foreign shipping corporation Good Fortune an exemption to some of its U.S.-based income from taxation, the tax court ruled in favor of the IRS. The DC Circuit reversed, holding that the IRS's interpretation of Internal Revenue Code 883 in the 2003 Regulation was unreasonable and could not stand. Even if the IRS reasonably concluded that sometimes—maybe oftentimes—bearer shares were incapable of proving the residence of their owners, the court held that the 2003 Regulation's categorical bar on considering bearer shares did not follow from that premise. The court explained that the IRS has not justified treating all bearer shares as incapable of proving ownership; and if some corporations' bearer shares were not kept in record form, and thus were not capable of proving the location of an owner, then the IRS should have identified those corporations' shares and tailored its rule accordingly. View "Good Fortune Shipping SA v. Commissioner" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit against Hezbollah and two foreign banks for injuries sustained during the attacks in northern Israel in 2006. In one action, American plaintiffs allege that Hezbollah's rocket attacks amounted to acts of international terrorism, in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA). In a second action, all plaintiffs accused the banks of funding Hezbollah's attacks, in violation of both the ATA and the Alien Tort Statute (ATS). The DC Circuit vacated the district court's dismissal of the ATA claims, holding that the district court must first determine that it has personal jurisdiction over the defendants before applying the statute's act-of-war exception. The court affirmed the dismissal of claims under the ATS based on the Supreme Court's recent decision in Jesner v. Arab Bank, PLC, 138 S. Ct. 1386 (2018), which held that foreign corporations (like the bank defendants here) were not subject to liability under that statute. The court remanded for further proceedings. View "Kaplan v. Central Bank of Iran" on Justia Law

Zank, a U.S. citizen, and Moreno, an Ecuadorian citizen, divorced and had joint custody of BLZ, born in Michigan in 2006. The decree prohibited Moreno from taking BLZ to Ecuador without prior notice to Zank. In 2009, Moreno took BLZ to Ecuador. Zank obtained a Michigan state court temporary sole custody order, contacted the State Department, and filled out a Hague Convention petition with the Embassy in Ecuador. Zank did not complete the process by filing the petition with the Ecuadorian courts. The State Department labeled Ecuador as noncompliant with its Hague Convention obligations. In Ecuador, Moreno enrolled BLZ in school. BLZ flourished, participating in extracurricular activities and making many friends. In 2010, Moreno permitted Zank to visit BLZ in Ecuador. Zank did not take BLZ to the Embassy or pursue a Hague Convention petition. Moreno obtained an ex parte order from an Ecuadorian court prohibiting BLZ from leaving the country. The parents eventually filed an agreement in Ecuador: Moreno received full legal custody and an increase in child support; Zank waived issues concerning BLZ's arrival in Ecuador. The "no travel" order was lifted. BLZ visited Zank in 2014. Moreno and Zank reiterated their agreement, for filing in the U.S.; it was filed in the wrong court. In 2016, BLZ visited Zank. Zank claims that BLZ told him that Moreno had physically abused her and that she did not wish to return to Ecuador. BLZ voiced a preference for living permanently with Zank. The Michigan court granted Zank custody. Moreno filed this Hague Convention petition in federal court, which held that the original abduction meant that Ecuador could not be the child’s habitual residence. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The proper remedy for the initial kidnapping was a Hague Convention petition in Ecuador, subject to applicable defenses, not self-help. View "Moreno v. Zank" on Justia Law

Heirs of several Jewish art dealers doing business in Frankfurt, Germany in the 1930s sought to recover a valuable art collection (Welfenschatz) allegedly taken by the Nazis. The DC Circuit largely affirmed the district court's denial of Germany's motion to dismiss, holding that Germany failed to carry its burden of demonstrating that the allegations did not bring the case within the expropriation exception of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) as defined and applied in Simon v. Republic of Hungary, 812 F.3d 127 (D.C. Cir. 2016). On remand, the district court must grant the motion to dismiss with respect to the Federal Republic of Germany—but not the SPK, an instrumentality for which the commercial-nexus requirement can be satisfied without the presence of the Welfenschatz in the United States. The court rejected Germany's argument that the heirs must exhaust their remedies against Germany in its courts before pressing a claim against it elsewhere. Finally, the court rejected Germany's argument that the heirs' state law causes of action conflict with, and thus were preempted by, United States foreign policy. View "Philipp v. Federal Republic of Germany" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit reversed a petition seeking leave to subpoena the defendant law firm, Shell's United States counsel, for documents belonging to a foreign company, Royal Dutch Shell. The court held that it was an abuse of discretion for a district court to grant a 28 U.S.C. 1782 petition where the documents sought from a foreign company's U.S. counsel would be unreachable in a foreign country. The court cautioned in Application of Sarrio, S.A., 119 F.3d 143 (2d Cir. 1997), that an order compelling American counsel to deliver documents that would not be discoverable abroad, and that are in counsel's hands solely because they were sent to the United States for the purpose of American litigation, as in this case, would jeopardize the policy of promoting open communications between lawyers and their clients. View "Kiobel v. Cravath, Swain & Moore, LLP" on Justia Law