Justia International Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, American purchasers of bulk Vitamin C, filed a class action alleging that four Chinese exporters of Vitamin C conspired to inflate prices and restrict supply in violation of the Sherman Act and the Clayton Act. The district court denied defendants' motion to dismiss on the basis of the act of state doctrine, foreign sovereign compulsion, and international comity. After the district court denied defendants' motion for summary judgment, the case proceeded to trial where all defendants settled except for Hebei and its parent company NCPG. Following the jury verdict, the district court entered treble damages against Hebei and NCPG and denied their renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law. The Second Circuit reversed. The Supreme Court then reversed the Second Circuit's judgment and remanded.On remand from the Supreme Court, the Second Circuit once again concluded that this case should be dismissed on international comity grounds. Giving careful consideration but not conclusive deference to the views of the Ministry of Commerce of the People's Republic of China, the court read the relevant Chinese regulations—as illuminated by contemporaneous administrative documents and industry reports—to have required defendants to collude on Vitamin C export prices and quantities as part and parcel of China's export regime for Vitamin C. The court balanced this true conflict between U.S. and Chinese law together with other established principles of international comity, declining to construe U.S. antitrust law to reach defendants' conduct. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded with instructions to dismiss the case. View "Animal Science Products, Inc. v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, descendants of Jews rounded up in France after it signed an armistice with Germany in 1940, alleged that persons being sent to death camps were loaded on trains operated by the French national railroad, SNCF. Their belongings were stolen by railroad workers and given to the Nazis. They sought compensation for those thefts. They cited the expropriation exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), which applies when the allegations concern “rights in property taken in violation of international law,” 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(3).The Seventh Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the suit. Plaintiffs must seek their remedy under a French administrative-claims system for compensating victims of the Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime. The court cited “comity-based abstention, calling this a “triple-foreign suit”: plaintiffs allege that nationals of a country other than the U.S. were injured by a foreign entity in a foreign nation. Although the plaintiffs claim that one of them is a U.S. citizen, they are heirs of the victims. The fact that a foreign national’s claim has been transferred to a U.S. citizen does not make it less a foreign claim. The proper location of a suit depends on the original acts, not on the plaintiff’s current residence. Their complaint mentions conversion and unjust enrichment but does not identify a source of law, and federal common law, state law, and section 1350 all fall short in a triple-foreign suit. View "Scalin v. Societe Nationale SNCF SA" on Justia Law

Radmanesh, a U.S. citizen born in 1969, lived in Iran, 1978-1986. In 1979, armed members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a military arm of the Iranian government, stormed into the family home and accused Radmanesh’s father of treason. The family was threatened with execution unless the father trained Iranians as engineers. Radmanesh was forced to attend an Iranian-run school, where his classmates physically abused him while chanting “Death to Americans.” Members of a youth paramilitary organization beat Radmanesh. One beating sent Radmanesh to the hospital with broken ribs, lacerations, and a concussion. In 1986, Radmanesh was conscripted to fight in the Iran-Iraq War. Radmanesh’s commander told him that he was being sent to die as a martyr for Islam and forced Radmanesh at gunpoint to shoot and kill a sleeping Iraqi soldier. Radmanesh was diagnosed with PTSD and, while on leave, escaped to the United States.Radmanesh sued Iran and the IRGC, alleging hostage-taking, torture, assault, battery, false imprisonment, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The D.C. Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the complaint against Iran, finding that Radmanesh failed to establish that this case falls within the terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1604. What Radmanesh endured during the Iran-Iraq War was no different from the hardships that soldiers routinely suffer during wartime. The events that occurred before the war were not severe enough to amount to torture. View "Radmanesh v. Islamic Republic of Iran" on Justia Law

The Helms-Burton Act allows any United States national with a claim to property confiscated by the Cuban Government to sue any person who traffics in such property. Plaintiff filed suit alleging that American had trafficked in confiscated property in violation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, seeking damages that include triple the value of the Cuban beachfront properties at issue.The Fifth Circuit disagreed with the district court's decision to dismiss plaintiff's claim under the Act for lack of standing. The court sided with courts that have held that the legally cognizable right provided by the Helms-Burton Act to the rightful owners of properties confiscated by Fidel Castro allows those property owners to assert a concrete injury based on defendants' alleged trafficking in those properties.However, plaintiff's claim fails on the merits because it does not satisfy certain statutory requirements under the Act. The court agreed with the district court's alternative conclusion that the statutory time limit requirement is fatal to this suit, because the property in which plaintiff claims an ownership interest was confiscated before 1996—yet he did not inherit his claim to that property until after 1996. Accordingly, the court vacated the district court's dismissal of the case for lack of standing and rendered judgment for defendant. View "Glen v. American Airlines, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs and their family members were injured or killed in attacks carried out by Hamas, which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. They sued BLOM Bank for aiding and abetting Hamas’s attacks by providing financial services to customers affiliated with Hamas, in violation of the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 18 U.S.C. 2333, as amended by the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), section 2333(d)(2). The district court dismissed. concluding that Plaintiffs failed to plausibly allege BLOM aided and abetted Hamas’s attacks in violation of JASTA.The Second Circuit affirmed. While the district court applied the wrong standard for JASTA aiding-and-abetting liability, the complaint fails to state a claim under the correct standard. Plaintiffs plausibly alleged that the party whom BLOM aided (indirectly), Hamas, committed attacks causing the Plaintiffs’ injuries but their allegations did not support an inference that BLOM was aware of the customers’ ties with Hamas before the relevant attacks. The complaint’s references to media articles and publications on the connection to Hamas were insufficient. View "Honickman v. BLOM Bank SAL" on Justia Law

On May 16, 2017, Turkish security forces clashed with protesters outside the Turkish ambassador’s Washington, D.C. residence. Injured protesters sued the Republic of Turkey, claiming that President Erdogan ordered the attack. They asserted various tort claims, violation of D.C. Code 22-3704, which creates a civil action for injuries that demonstrate an accused’s prejudice based on the victim’s race or national origin, and civil claims under the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act and under the Alien Tort Statute.After reviewing the videotape of the incident, the district court stated: [T]he protesters remained standing on the designated sidewalk. Turkish security forces ... crossed a police line to attack the protesters. The protesters ... either fell to the ground, where Turkish security forces continued to kick and hit them or ran away."The D.C. Circuit affirmed the denial of Turkey's motion to dismiss. Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. 1602, a foreign state is “presumptively immune" from the jurisdiction of U.S. courts but a “tortious acts exception,” strips immunity if money damages are sought for personal injury or death, or damage to property, occurring in the U.S. and caused by the tortious act of a foreign state. The court rejected Turkey's argument that the “discretionary function” exception preserved its sovereign immunity. Although the Turkish security detail had a right to protect President Erdogan, Turkey did not have the discretion to commit criminal assaults. The decisions giving rise to the lawsuit were not “‘fraught with’ economic, political, or social judgments.” View "Usoyan v. Republic of Turkey" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's July 8, 2020 Order granting an application for discovery assistance pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 1782 and the August 25, 2020 Order denying reconsideration of the same. The Fund, a Russian corporation, sought assistance from the district court to order discovery from AlixPartners for use in an arbitration proceeding brought by the Fund against Lithuania before an arbitral panel established pursuant to a bilateral investment treaty between Lithuania and Russia.The court concluded that an arbitration between a foreign state and an investor, which takes place before an arbitral panel established pursuant to a bilateral investment treaty to which the foreign State is a party, constitutes a "proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal" under 28 U.S.C. 1782; the Fund, as a party to the arbitration for which it seeks discovery assistance, is an "interested person" who may seek discovery assistance for such an arbitration under section 1782; and the district court did not abuse its discretion in finding that the Intel factors weigh in favor of granting the Fund's discovery application under section 1782. View "The Application of the Fund v. AlixPartners" on Justia Law

In 1994, Farrell, a U.S. citizen, moved to Switzerland. He married a Swiss citizen; they had a child. In 2004, he naturalized as a Swiss citizen, allegedly with the intent of relinquishing his U.S. nationality; 8 U.S.C. 1481(a)(1) refers to “voluntarily … with the intention of relinquishing United States nationality … obtaining naturalization in a foreign state.” He subsequently made no use of his U.S. citizenship and did not enter the U.S. In 2013, Farrell was arrested in Spain and extradited to the U.S. He pled guilty to interstate travel with intent to engage in sex with a minor and possession of child pornography, which he committed 10 years earlier in the U.S., and was sentenced to imprisonment in the U.S.Farrell corresponded with the State Department, requesting a certificate of loss of nationality (CLN). He was told he would have to sign forms in person in front of a consular officer. Farrell argued that he had already committed the expatriating act when he naturalized in Switzerland and was now attesting that he did so voluntarily with the intent to lose his nationality. The Embassy responded that Farrell could not lose his citizenship while he was imprisoned in the U.S. Farrell sued, claiming that the in-person requirement was contrary to statute and arbitrary. The D.C. Circuit reversed the district court. While the Department has statutory authority to impose an in-person requirement, it acted arbitrarily in denying Farrell a CLN by offering conflicting and ever-evolving reasons for denying the CLN. View "Farrell v. Blinken" on Justia Law

In a prior opinion, the Ninth CIrcuit held that SS Mumbai could not equitably estop SS Bangalore from avoiding arbitration. Mumbai, a non-signatory to a partnership deed that contained an arbitration provision, argued that, based on the arbitration provision, Indian law applied to the question of whether it could compel Bangalore to arbitrate.The Supreme Court vacated and remanded based on its holding that the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards does not conflict with the enforcement of arbitration agreements by non-signatories under domestic law equitable estoppel doctrines.On remand, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s order denying Mumbai’s motion to compel arbitration. While a nonsignatory can compel arbitration in a Convention case, the allegations, in this case, do not implicate the arbitration clause—a prerequisite for compelling arbitration under the equitable estoppel framework. The court declined to apply Indian law because whether Mumbai could enforce the partnership deed as a non-signatory was a threshold issue for which it did not look to the agreement itself. The deed’s arbitration provision applied to disputes “arising between the partners” and not also to third parties such as Mumbai. View "Setty v.. Shrinivas Sugandhallayah, LLP" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs are residents of Gujarat, India, an Indian governmental entity, and a nonprofit focused on fish workers' rights. IFC is an international organization of 185 member countries. The plaintiffs allege that they have been injured by operations of India's coal-fired Tata Mundra Power Plant, owned and operated by CGPL. IFC loaned funds for the project and conditioned disbursement of those funds on CGPL’s compliance with certain environmental standards. The plaintiffs allege that IFC negligently failed to ensure that the Plant’s design and operation complied with these environmental standards but nonetheless disbursed funds to CGPL. These supervisory omissions and disbursement decisions allegedly took place at IFC’s Washington, D.C. headquarters.On remand from the Supreme Court, which held that organizations such as IFC possess more limited immunity equivalent to that enjoyed by foreign governments, the district court again ruled that IFC was immune from the claims. The D.C. Circuit affirmed. United States courts lack subject-matter jurisdiction. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides that foreign states are immune from the jurisdiction of United States’ courts, 28 U.S.C. 1604; the commercial activity exception does not apply because the gravamen of the complaint is injurious activities that occurred in India. View "Jam v. International Finance Corp." on Justia Law