United States Second Circuit

Judgment for plaintiff, a citizen of Bangladesh and resident of the United States, in an action alleging that defendants had directed a paramilitary unit of the Bangladeshi national police to detain and torture him in order to force him to turn over his ownership interest in a telecommunications company, is: 1) reversed in part and remanded, insofar as the judgment rests on the claims brought under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS) because the conduct giving rise to this action occurred within the territory of another sovereign and, therefore, cannot form the basis for an action brought under the ATS; and 2) affirmed in part, insofar as the judgments rests on the claim under the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), where the TVPA, unlike the ATS, has extraterritorial application, and plaintiff's claim was based on actionable torture, and permissibly predicated on agency theories of liability.

Appellate Information

• Decided 02/10/2014
• Published 02/10/2014

Judges

• CABRANES

Court

• United States Second Circuit

Counsel