When Fidel Castro captured power in 1959, his Cuban government expropriated billions of dollars in American-owned business property. A 1972 U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission report explained that Castro’s “unlawful seizures violated every standard by which the nationals of the free world conduct their affairs.” The stolen business property included an oil refinery, product terminals and packaging plants, and more than 100 service stations and related properties owned by a subsidiary of Standard Oil Company (now Exxon Mobil Corporation). Castro’s communist government “transferred” Exxon’s valuable business property to state-owned corporations.
After decades of failed diplomatic efforts to obtain compensation for the Castro government’s confiscation victims, Congress passed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act of 1996, also known as the Helms-Burton Act. Title III of the Act, 22 U.S.C. §§ 6081-6085, creates a Cuba-specific cause of action that entitles U.S.-owned businesses to seek compensation for their confiscated property. Such a suit can be filed against any “person”—defined by the statute to include any “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state”—that “traffics in property that was confiscated by the Cuban Government.”
A different provision of the Act, however, allows the President of the United States to suspend the statute’s effective date, in six-month increments, if he determines that “the suspension is necessary to the national interests of the United States and will expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba.” For more than 20 years, every President repeatedly suspended the Act until President Trump, during his first term, allowed it to go in effect on May 2, 2019.
Case Background
On the same day in 2019, Exxon filed in Washington, D.C. federal district court a Title III damages suit against the Cuba state-owned entities that operate or profit from its confiscated business property. The district court held that Exxon’s suit cannot proceed unless it satisfies one or more exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). See 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a). Subject to those exceptions FSIA creates a presumption of immunity for suits against foreign governments. On interlocutory appeal, a D.C. Circuit panel, in a 2 to 1 decision, agreed. The panel majority held that FSIA’s expropriation exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), is inapplicable, and that the district court needs to undertake additional factual analysis before determining whether jurisdiction exists under the FSIA commercial-activity exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2).
Rejecting the panel majority’s holding that a Title III suit must satisfy a FSIA exception, Senior Circuit Judge Randolph’s strong dissent explained that “[p]assage of [the Helms-Burton Act] established a specific, independent, and exclusive cause of action for American nationals whose property the Cuban government had confiscated decades earlier.”
On October 3, 2025, the Supreme Court granted Exxon’s petition for a writ of certiorari in Exxon Mobil Corporation v. Corporacion Cimex, S.A. (Cuba) (24-699).
Amicus Brief
The Atlantic Legal Foundation, joined by the DRI Center for Law and Public Policy, has filed a merits-stage amicus brief urging the Court to reverse the court of appeals and allow Exxon’s suit to proceed. The brief was authored by ALF Executive Vice President & General Counsel Lawrence Ebner.
The amicus brief argues that the D.C. Circuit panel majority erred in holding that a Title III suit against a Cuba-owned corporation that operates or profits from confiscated property cannot proceed unless the plaintiff first can demonstrate that its compensation claim satisfies one of the FSIA exceptions. There is no basis for engrafting FSIA onto the later-enacted Helms-Burton Act. The text and legislative history of the Helms-Burton Act demonstrate that by enacting Title III, Congress intended to establish an expeditious, straightforward, and effective judicial process for U.S. businesses whose property was confiscated, to obtain compensation from Cuba-owned instrumentalities, as well as from other entities that traffic in their confiscated property.
The amicus brief emphasizes that as a practical matter, the FSIA exceptions can be burdensome and difficult to satisfy, often requiring extensive jurisdictional discovery. The D.C. Circuit’s 2 to 1 decision thus interposes a high hurdle, and for some potential Title III plaintiffs erects an insurmountable barrier, to pursuit and fulfillment of the compensation remedy established by Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.
The Findings that Congress included in Title III expressly recognize that “[i]ndividuals enjoy a fundamental right to own and enjoy property which is enshrined in the United States Constitution.” This statement refers, of course, to the Fifth Amendment’s Takings/Just Compensation Clause. The amicus brief explains that the same equitable “just compensation” principles underlying the Takings/Just Compensation Clause are reflected in the Title III cause of action for compensation in connection with Cuba-confiscated business property.
The Supreme Court should reverse the D.C. Circuit’s judgment so that Exxon’s Title III suit can proceed without having to satisfy a FSIA exception.