Supreme Court to Hear ExxonMobil, Havana Docks Suits Over Seized Cuban Assets

The U.S. Supreme Court hears oral arguments today in two cases under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act that seek redress for assets confiscated by Fidel Castro’s government in 1960. One appeal is Exxon Mobil v. Corporacion Cimex, a challenge tied to oil and gas assets including a 35,000-barrel-per-day refinery and more than 100 service stations; the other involves Havana Docks Corporation’s effort to revive roughly $440 million in judgments against Carnival Corporation, Norwegian Cruise Line and two other cruise lines for use of a seized Havana pier.

Exxon’s filings say the company “has never received any compensation for that confiscation” and values the loss at more than $700 million today. Exxon “promptly filed this action against Respondents more than six years ago, as soon as the suspension on Title III claims lapsed in May 2019,” a Supreme Court filing states, recounting that Exxon’s property was expropriated in 1960 and that the D.C. Circuit held “Exxon’s Title III claims against the Cuban instrumentalities cannot proceed.” The filing argues that Cuban instrumentalities “used and profited from Exxon’s wrongfully confiscated property” and warns that the appeals court ruling would insulate state entities while leaving U.S. companies vulnerable.

Havana Docks’ appeal centers on a company that built Havana port piers in 1905 under a 99-year operating-and-revenue arrangement that would have expired in 2004, but whose facilities were seized after the revolution. Havana Docks is asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which sided with the cruise lines and blocked the revival of roughly $440 million in judgments. The cruise companies told the 11th Circuit that “This case really is that simple,” arguing the original agreement’s term would have expired in 2004 and cruise ships did not begin calling Havana until 2016.

Both appeals rest on Title III’s private right of action: the Helms-Burton Act permits U.S. nationals who owned property in Cuba to sue anyone who “traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government on or after January 1, 1959.” That provision can be suspended by a U.S. president if deemed “necessary to the national interests of the United States,” and the litigation at the Supreme Court follows a suspension lapse in May 2019 that prompted new filings.

The government-focused question before the justices is whether Title III reaches Cuban state-owned instrumentalities that used or profited from expropriated assets, or whether lower-court readings bar such suits and push claimants toward litigation against U.S.-based defendants. A Supreme Court filing warns that the D.C. Circuit’s approach “will only exacerbate this trend by further encouraging Title III plaintiffs to pursue the path of least resistance, targeting U.S. businesses instead of the Cuban state actors who were responsible for the expropriations.”

Opinion voices have framed the stakes politically as well; one commentary argues the cases could “help corporate interests recoup hundreds of millions in expropriated Cuban assets if Trump delivers regime change,” calling one case “the most important Supreme Court case on Cuba ‘in the past sixty years’.” After today’s arguments, the justices will decide whether to allow Title III suits to proceed against the Cuban entities named in the complaints or to leave the lower-court rulings intact.