The case, Exxon Mobil Corporation v. Corporacion Cimex, S.A. (Cuba), et al., No. 24-699, centers on Exxon's Title III claim against Cuban state-controlled entities for trafficking in property confiscated from U.S. nationals — property that includes Exxon's own assets expropriated in 1960. After more than seven years of litigation, Exxon has yet to obtain a judgment, and the core question before the Court is whether the FSIA's immunity framework applies at all to Title III suits, or whether the Helms-Burton Act independently abrogated that immunity.
Arguing for Exxon, Morgan L. Ratner contended that the sum total of the statute's provisions — a cause of action expressly directed at Cuban instrumentalities, repeated references to claims and judgments against those entities, a congressional demand for fully effective remedies, and a simultaneously enacted embargo that makes FSIA's commercial-activity exceptions nearly useless — collectively clear the bar for abrogation without requiring magic words. Curtis E. Gannon, Deputy Solicitor General, argued for the United States as amicus curiae supporting the petitioner, pressing the additional point that Section 6082(c)(1)'s reference to 28 U.S.C. 1331 as the jurisdictional basis — rather than Section 1330, which governs FSIA suits — signals that Congress deliberately displaced the FSIA framework.
The justices questioned both sides on multiple fronts. Justice Kagan pressed that a cause of action and an abrogation of immunity are two distinct things, and that the FSIA operates as a trans-substantive background rule that addresses immunity questions regardless of what other statutes create causes of action. Justice Jackson questioned how Congress's silence on abrogation, against the backdrop of a statute that expressly governs how foreign sovereign immunity is abrogated, could be read as anything other than an intent to let the FSIA operate. Justice Sotomayor repeatedly returned to the harmonization question, noting that because some Title III suits can proceed under existing FSIA commercial-activity exceptions, the two statutes are not irreconcilably in conflict.
Respondents' counsel Jules L. Lobel argued that Section 1604 of the FSIA provides that foreign state instrumentalities shall be immune unless one of the enumerated exceptions is met, that nothing in Title III's text abrogates that immunity, and that Congress considered and rejected an explicit FSIA waiver after the executive branch objected. He also pointed to evidence that trade between the United States and Cuba was substantial even in 1996. Lobel cited testimony from Under Secretary of State Peter Tarnoff that trade with Cuba was substantial, and added that the record showed roughly $65 million in medicines and medical supplies, over 20,000 travelers in 1993 and 50,000 in 1994, and — according to exhibits in the district court — a quarter of a billion dollars in remittances going to Cuban entities in 1994. He argued this undercut the petitioner's claim that FSIA exceptions would render Title III suits a dead letter.
Justice Kavanaugh and Justice Gorsuch probed the significance of the statute's presidential suspension authority, which allows the President to toggle Title III suits on and off based on national interest and progress toward democracy in Cuba — a power exercised continuously for roughly 23 years. Both justices questioned whether that structure suggests Congress was reverting to a pre-FSIA regime of executive discretion over foreign-sovereign suits, or whether it cuts against reading the statute as having silently abrogated the FSIA. Justice Alito raised the practical stakes, noting that Cuban instrumentalities hold few assets in the United States and questioning what value a judgment would have if it cannot be executed domestically and may not be enforceable abroad given that the Helms-Burton Act goes beyond international law.
A decision is expected before the end of the Court's current term.