United States Supreme Court

In a suit involving the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. section 1604, brought by an American parent company of a Venezuelan subsidiary that supplied oil rigs to oil development entities, alleging that Venezuela had unlawfully expropriated the subsidiary's rigs by nationalizing them, the D.C. Circuit's decision that the claims fell within the expropriation exception is vacated where: 1) the nonfrivolous-argument standard is not consistent with the FSIA; 2) a case falls within the scope of the expropriation exception only if the property in which the party claims to hold rights was indeed 'property taken in violation of international law'; and 3) a court should decide the foreign sovereign's immunity defense '[a]t the threshold' of the action, Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 493, resolving any factual disputes as near to the outset of the case as is reasonably possible.

Appellate Information

• Published 2017/05/01

Judges

• BREYER

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel