Justia International Law Opinion Summaries

Pursuant to 19-A M.R.S. 252(1)(A), a referee held hearings and issued a report, finding: The parties were married in France, in 2006. Their child was born in 2008. A protection order had issued, based on findings that Karamanoglu had abused Gourlaouen and the child. The child’s therapist and the guardian ad litem agreed that it was in the child’s best interest to have unsupervised visitation with Karamanoglu, who had entered counseling. The report recommended shared parental rights and responsibilities, including shared primary residence and care. The parties jointly own properties in Primelin, France; Freeport; and Yarmouth. The parties had entered into a standard French marriage contract, which is valid and enforceable, and had supplemented that contract. The referee recommended: Karamanoglu’s and Gourlaouen’s shares of the equity in the Yarmouth property to be $3.1 million and $1.4 million respectively; that the Yarmouth and Freeport properties be set aside to Karamanoglu; that Gourlaouen be awarded the Primelin property; that Karamanoglu pay $1 million to Gourlaouen; and that Karamanoglu pay Gourlaouen spousal support of $3,800 per month for five years. The court adopted the reports. The Maine Supreme Judicial Court vacated with respect to co-parenting counseling, the child's medical and mental health treatment, and mandatory pre-filing mediation, and found error in the analysis of the parties’ interests in the Primelin property. View "Karamanoglu v. Gourlaouen" on Justia Law

Diag Human appealed the district court's dismissal, sua sponte, of its claim for enforcement of a foreign arbitral award for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The court found for Diag Human on both of the contested Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1605(a)(6), issues here: Diag Human and the Czech Republic shared a legal relationship, and their arbitration “may” be governed by the New York Convention. Therefore, the Czech Republic is not entitled to sovereign immunity in this matter under the FSIA’s arbitration exception. Here, Diag Human’s relationship with the Czech Republic qualifies as a commercial legal relationship, and the arbitration at issue here arises out of that commercial legal relationship. Because a legal basis exists for federal courts to enforce this arbitration award, the court concluded that subject matter jurisdiction exists. Whether the arbitration award is final will be a question going to the merits of the case, as it could determine whether the arbitration award can be enforced or not. The court expresses no view on the matter. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Diag Human S.E. v. Czech Republic - Ministry of Health" on Justia Law

GSS appealed the district court’s dismissal of its second attempt to confirm a $44 million arbitral award entered against the Port Authority for breach of a construction contract. GSS first tried to confirm the award, but the district court found that it had no personal jurisdiction over the Port Authority. Then GSS filed its second petition, also naming the Republic of Liberia, which owns the Port Authority, as respondents. The district court again dismissed GSS’s petition, finding that issue preclusion barred relitigating its personal jurisdiction over the Port Authority and that GSS failed to demonstrate that Liberia was liable for the Port Authority’s alleged breach. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of the claims against Liberia for lack of subject matter jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. 1330 et seq.; affirmed the district court's dismissal of GSS's petition against the Port Authority on sovereign immunities grounds; and concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion by dismissing GSS's petition before allowing jurisdictional discovery. View "GSS Group Ltd. v. Republic of Liberia" on Justia Law

Two brothers were awarded a $2.79 billion judgment against the Republic of Cuba and other Cuban parties. The brothers subsequently sought to satisfy the federal judgment. The district court concluded that certain assets the brothers sought to attach to satisfy the judgment were not the property of the Cuban government and thus were not subject to attachment in satisfaction of their judgment. The brothers appealed. The trustee who controlled the assets at issue cross-appealed, arguing that the district court erred by denying its motion for attorneys’ fees incurred in proceedings addressing whether it had to turn over the assets to the brothers. The First Circuit affirmed in all respects, holding that the district court (1) did not err in dismissing the case, as the assets at issue were not the property of the Cuban government; and (2) did not err in denying the trustee’s motion for attorneys’ fees as untimely. View "Villoldo v. Castro Ruz" on Justia Law

The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, T.I.A.S. No. 6997, 21 U.S.T. 2517, requires signatory states to recognize written arbitration agreements “concerning a subject matter capable of settlement by arbitration.” In this appeal, the court addressed an issue of first impression for the Circuit: whether a cruise ship employee who is injured on the job, and whose employment contract contains an arbitration agreement governed by the New York Convention and Chapter 2 of the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 201, can bar arbitration by showing that high costs may prevent him from effectively vindicating his federal statutory rights in the arbitral forum. The court concluded that it need not definitely answer this question because, even if the court were to assume that plaintiff could raise a cost-based (public policy) defense in response to NCL's motion to compel arbitration, on this record he has plainly failed to establish that the costs of arbitration would preclude him from arbitrating his federal statutory claims. Therefore, the court affirmed the district court’s order compelling the parties to arbitrate. However, the court denied defendant's motion for sanctions. View "Suazo v. NCL (Bahamas), Ltd." on Justia Law

Six-year-old D.A.P.G. was abducted from his home in Honduras and brought illegally into the United States by defendant, his mother. Plaintiff filed a petition under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction, Oct. 25, 1980, T.I.A.S. No. 11,670, seeking the return of his only child. Plaintiff filed his return petition two months outside of the one-year period of the child's wrongful removal, allowing the district court to consider the Convention’s defense that the child is well-settled in his new environment and therefore should not be returned. The district court denied plaintiff's petition, concluding that D.A.P.G. was well-settled in his current community even though defendant’s removal of D.A.P.G. from Honduras was wrongful. The court concluded that the district court erred in its legal analysis and application of the Convention’s well-settled defense. The court joined its sister circuits and held that the following factors should be considered: (1) the child’s age; (2) the stability and duration of the child’s residence in the new environment; (3) whether the child attends school or day care consistently; (4) whether the child has friends and relatives in the new area; (5) the child’s participation in community or extracurricular activities; (6) the respondent’s employment and financial stability; and (7) the immigration status of the respondent and child. The court joined the Second and Ninth Circuits in concluding that immigration status is neither dispositive nor subject to categorical rules, but instead is one relevant factor in a multifactor test. Here, the district court did not clearly err in its factual findings but erred in its legal interpretation and application of the well-settled defense. Giving due consideration to immigration status and the other relevant factors listed above, the thin evidence in the record does not demonstrate that D.A.P.G. has formed significant connections to his new environment. Accordingly, the court vacated and rendered judgment in plaintiff's favor. View "Hernandez v. Pena" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Peter Innes and his wife, Maria Jose Carrascosa, were involved in a contentious divorce and custody battle over their daughter Victoria. Innes was a citizen of the United States; Carrascosa was a Spanish national and a permanent resident of New Jersey. Victoria was a dual citizen of the United States and Spain. During the course of their domestic relations litigation, the parties entered into an agreement whereby Carrascosa's attorneys would hold Victoria's United States and Spanish passports in trust to restrict travel outside of the United States with Victoria without written permission of the other party (the Agreement). Carrascosa discharged her first attorney and retained defendants Madeline Marzano-Lesnevich, Esq., and Lesnevich & Marzano Lesnevich, Attorneys at Law. Defendant Marzano-Lesnevich received Carrascosa's file, including the Agreement and Victoria's United States passport. In December 2004, Carrascosa obtained Victoria's United States passport from defendants, and used the passport to remove Victoria from the United States to Spain. Innes filed a petition under the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction for Victoria's return to the United States and traveled to Spain for a hearing on the petition. The Spanish court denied the petition and ordered Victoria to remain in Spain until age eighteen. Meanwhile, the parties' domestic relations litigation continued in New Jersey. The Family Part judge entered a judgment of divorce and granted Innes sole legal and residential custody of Victoria. The judgment gave Carrascosa ten days to bring Victoria back to the United States, but Carrascosa failed to comply with the order. Innes filed a complaint in the Law Division against defendants alleging, in part, that they improperly released Victoria's passport and intentionally interfered with the Agreement. Innes requested relief, including damages and attorneys' fees. The New Jersey Supreme Court granted defendants petition for certification, limited to the issue of whether the attorney-defendants could be liable for attorneys' fees as consequential damages to a non-client, and found that yes, defendant attorneys could be held liable for counsel fees if, as trustees and escrow agents for both Innes and Carrascosa, they intentionally breached their fiduciary obligation to Innes by releasing Victoria's United States passport to Carrascosa without Innes' permission. View "Innes v. Marzano-Lesnevich" on Justia Law

American nationals may seek damages from state sponsors of terrorism in U.S. courts, 28 U.S.C. 1605A, but face difficulties enforcing their judgments. Concerned with specific terrorism cases, Congress enacted the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012, making designated assets available to satisfy judgments underlying a consolidated enforcement proceeding (identified by docket number), 22 U.S.C. 8772. Section 8772(a)(2) requires a court to determine,“whether Iran holds equitable title to, or the beneficial interest in, the assets.” Plaintiffs obtained default judgments and sought turnover of about $1.75 billion in bonds held in a New York bank account, allegedly owned by Bank Markazi, the Central Bank of Iran. Bank Markazi maintained that Section 8772 violated the separation-of-powers doctrine, contending that Congress had usurped the judicial role by directing a particular result in a pending enforcement proceeding. The district court, Second Circuit, and Supreme Court disagreed, concluding that Section 8772 permissibly changed the law applicable in a pending litigation. Although Article III bars Congress from telling a court how to apply pre-existing law to particular circumstances, Congress may amend a law and make the amended prescription retroactively applicable in pending cases. Nor is Section 8772 invalid because it prescribes a rule for a single, pending case identified by caption and docket number. Measures taken by the political branches to control the disposition of foreign-state property, including blocking specific foreign-state assets or making them available for attachment, have never been rejected as invasions upon the Article III judicial power. View "Bank Markazi v. Peterson" on Justia Law

Bašić, a Balkan native, came to the U.S. in 1994 as a refugee to escape the civil war that was tearing Yugoslavia apart. She settled in Kentucky and became a naturalized citizen. She is now accused in Bosnia, one of Yugoslavia’s successor states, of crimes committed against ethnic Serbs during the war while Bašić was a member of the Croatian army. Bosnia asked the U.S. to extradite Bašić for trial. The Department of State filed a Complaint for Extradition in 2011. A Magistrate Judge certified the complaint, concluding that Bašić was extraditable under a 1902 treaty between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Serbia, 32 Stat. 1890. Direct appeal is not available in extradition proceedings, so Bašić filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. 2241. The Sixth Circuit affirmed denial, rejecting arguments that the Treaty prohibits extradition of U.S. citizens to Bosnia and that the Bosnian government failed to produce a warrant for Bašić’s arrest as required by the Treaty. View "Bašic v. Steck" on Justia Law

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) makes it a crime for certain sex offenders to “knowingly fai[l] to register or update a registration,” 18 U.S.C. 2250(a)(3), and requires that offenders who move to a different state “shall, not later than 3 business days after each change of name, residence, employment, or student status,” inform, in person, at least one "jurisdiction involved" pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 16913(a) of all changes to required information. Section 16913(a) refers to “each jurisdiction where the offender resides, . . . is an employee, and . . . is a student.” Nichols, a registered sex offender, moved from Kansas to the Philippines without updating his registration, was arrested, and returned to the U.S. The Tenth Circuit affirmed his SORNA conviction, holding that Kansas, remained a SORNA “jurisdiction involved.” The Supreme Court reversed. Section16913(a) uses the present tense. Nichols once resided in Kansas; after moving, he “resides” in the Philippines. The Philippines is not a SORNA “jurisdiction.” Nichols could not have appeared in person in Kansas “after” leaving the state. SORNA’s drafters could have required sex offenders to deregister in their departure jurisdiction before leaving the country had that been their intent. The Court noted that recent federal legislation, with existing registration requirements, offer reassurance that sex offenders will not be able to escape punishment for leaving the country without notifying their departure jurisdictions. View "Nichols v. United States" on Justia Law