WASHINGTON--The U.S. Supreme Court made it easier on Tuesday for U.S. companies to seek compensation from Cuba's government for property seized decades ago by former leader Fidel Castro's government, ruling in favour of ExxonMobil in its lawsuit against Cuban state-owned firm Corporación.
In a 6-3 decision, the court said a legal defense called foreign sovereign immunity, which generally prohibits U.S. lawsuits against foreign governments and their agents, is not available in cases like the one Exxon brought against CIMEX under a 1996 U.S. law called the Helms-Burton Act.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who authored the ruling, wrote that the 30-year-old federal law eliminates "the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities."
"The Helms-Burton Act authorizes private suits against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities — suits that would largely be nonstarters if subjected to the FSIA's requirements," Kavanaugh wrote, referring to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.
The court's six conservative justices were in the majority. Justice Elena Kagan wrote a dissent that was joined by the court's two other liberal members.
Kagan said that the plaintiffs should be required to show that their suit was exempt from the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, arguing that, "Nothing in the text or 'architecture' of the Helms-Burton Act suggests that Congress abrogated the sovereign immunity of these defendants — much less that it did so with the requisite unmistakable clarity."
The Supreme Court reversed a lower court's 2024 ruling that CIMEX could invoke the sovereign immunity defense. The decision removes a major obstacle Exxon faced in its 2019 lawsuit that accused CIMEX of unlawfully using a refinery and service stations that once belonged to Standard Oil, Exxon's corporate predecessor. The case will return to a lower court for further deliberations on CIMEX's potential liability.
A Helms-Burton Act provision called Title III permits lawsuits to be filed in U.S. courts against anyone who "traffics" in property confiscated by Cuba's communist government after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration supported Exxon's appeal to the Supreme Court.
An Exxon spokesperson welcomed the court's decision on Tuesday, calling it a critical moment in a 60-year effort to be compensated for what the Cuban government illegally seized. "It reflects two things: the merits of our argument and the fact that our company will fight a good fight for as long as it takes," the spokesperson said.
