Tag Archives: Commercial Activity Exception

OBB v. Sachs: A Smart Result

December 1, 2015 By in Commercial Activity Exception Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

Over two months ago, I argued that OBB v. Sachs was “an easy call” with regard to the commercial activity exception.  I contended that the case was controlled by Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349 (1993), and that “the Supreme Court should simply apply Nelson . . . and order the dismissal of Sachs’ lawsuit.”  Today, a unanimous Court did just that.  The Court applied Nelson and reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.  The Court got it right.

The Court not only got it right, but it also cleaned up a key part of FSIA jurisprudence.  In my post a few months ago, I stated the following with regard to the gravamen vs. elements approach in Nelson:

[W]hile Nelson contained sloppy language that could be interpreted to support an elements approach (Nelson, 507 U.S. at 357), the Nelson Court clearly used a gravamen approach.  It did not methodically review Nelson’s sixteen causes of action to determine whether some of the claims contained elements that required proof of commercial activity in the United States.  Instead, Nelson used a gravamen analysis, as reflected by its discussion of the failure to warn claim . . . . In other words, with regard to Nelson, one should do as the Court did, and not as the Court said.  Its actual holding makes clear that gravamen is the proper method of analysis.  However, the sloppy “elements” language in Nelson has indeed caused confusion in FSIA jurisprudence over the years, and Sachs is the perfect opportunity to clean it up.

In its opinion today, the Court echoed this analysis:

The Ninth Circuit apparently derived its one-element test from an overreading of one part of one sentence in Nelson, in which we observed that “the phrase [‘based upon’] is read most naturally to mean those elements of a claim that, if proven, would entitle a plaintiff to relief under his theory of the case.” 507 U. S., at 357. . . . [O]ur analysis in Nelson is flatly incompatible with a one-element approach. A one-element test necessarily requires a court to identify all the elements of each claim in a complaint before that court may reject those claims for falling outside §1605(a)(2). But we did not undertake such an exhaustive claim-by-claim, element-by-element analysis of the Nelsons’ 16 causes of action, nor did we engage in the choice-of-law analysis that would have been a necessary prelude to such an undertaking. . . .  Nelson instead teaches that an action is “based upon” the “particular conduct” that constitutes the “gravamen” of the suit.

Accordingly, the Supreme Court has now “cleaned up” the gravamen vs. elements issue, and has made it clear that a gravamen approach constitutes the governing mode of jurisdictional analysis under the FSIA.  Its conclusion is correct under Nelson, and is also a good result for all of the reasons I have previously identified.

Finally, the Court declined to reach the attribution issue in Sachs.  Since the commercial activity issue resolved the case, the Supreme Court’s decision was wise.  The attribution issue was complicated, and had the potential to yield a host of unintended consequences in FSIA jurisprudence.  The Court will eventually need to revisit attribution under the FSIA, but sidestepping the issue here was a sensible exercise of judicial restraint.

With Respect to the Agency Issue in OBB v. Sachs, the Supreme Court Should Stick with Bancec

September 29, 2015 By in Agency Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

While the commercial activity issue in OBB v. Sachs is a cinch (as I discussed here and here), the agency issue is more complicated – and could have far-reaching consequences for FSIA jurisprudence.  However, at the end of the day, the Court should reject the parties’ arguments and simply stick with Bancec.  That is the wisest and safest choice.

Until the Ninth Circuit’s panel and en banc decisions in Sachs v. OBB, FSIA case law was relatively clear with regard to the appropriate agency analysis in cases involving separate juridical entities.  When a plaintiff sought to establish jurisdiction over a foreign state based upon the conduct of a separate juridical entity, courts applied the standard set forth in the Supreme Court’s seminal decision in First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba (“Bancec ”), 462 U.S. 611 (1983).  Under Bancec, there is a presumption that the conduct of a separate juridical entity cannot be imputed to the foreign state.  See Bancec, 462 U.S. at 626-27 (stating that “government instrumentalities established as juridical entities distinct and independent from their sovereign should normally be treated as such”); id. at 627 (discussing the “presumption of independent status”); see also, e.g., Doe v. Holy See, 557 F.3d 1066, 1077-80 (9th Cir. 2009); Transamerica Leasing v. La Republica de Venezuela, 200 F.3d 843, 848 (D.C. Cir. 2000).  In cases not involving fraud or injustice through the use of the corporate form, the presumption of separateness means that a plaintiff must allege facts (and later prove) that the foreign state exercises day-to-day control over the separate corporation.  See, e.g., Dale v. Colagiovanni, 443 F.3d 425, 429 (5th Cir. 2006); see also Walter Fuller Aircraft Sales, Inc. v. Republic of Philippines, 965 F.2d 1375, 1381 (5th Cir. 1992).  Only in these circumstances will the conduct of the separate juridical entity be imputed to the foreign state.  See, e.g., Transamerica Leasing, 200 F.3d at 850-53.

There are at least two reasons to apply the Bancec standard to the FSIA jurisdictional inquiry.  First, Bancec’s presumption of separateness serves the principle of comity.  “’If U.S. law did not respect the separate juridical identities of different agencies or instrumentalities, it might encourage foreign jurisdictions to disregard the juridical divisions between different U.S. corporations or between a U.S. corporation and its independent subsidiary.’”  Bancec, 462 U.S. at 628, quoting H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 29-30 (1976).  At the jurisdictional stage, that could result in the United States being pulled into foreign court based upon conclusory allegations that a separate corporation is its “agent,” even though the corporate form was respected and even though the United States did not dominate the corporation’s day-to-day operations.

Second, the presumption of separateness provides a critical check against plaintiffs’ attempts to pierce the corporate veil at the jurisdictional stage.  If the actions of separate corporations acting in the United States could be freely imputed to foreign states, foreign sovereigns would be much more frequently drawn into highly burdensome litigation in United States courts based upon a mere allegation of agency.  Plaintiffs’ attorneys are often looking for the deepest pockets, and there would be no presumption of separateness to prevent counsel from alleging that a corporation in the United States is an “agent” of the foreign state.  By drawing the foreign state into litigation, plaintiffs’ counsel would profoundly undermine the benefits of the corporate form, drive up the settlement values of cases, and get their foot in the door to obtain intrusive discovery from foreign sovereigns – which would vitiate a core protection afforded by foreign sovereign immunity, increase litigation costs and cause significant tensions with foreign states.

Even though Bancec has repeatedly proved to be a workable standard over the past thirty years, the parties and the United States government in OBB v. Sachs have urged the Court to effectively abandon Bancec’s presumption of separateness at the jurisdictional stage.  While OBB raises the Bancec issue, its chief argument is that the Court should use 28 U.S.C. section 1603 to determine whether the acts of an entity can be imputed to a foreign state – a meritless argument that I have addressed before. 

Sachs and the government, in turn, argue that the Court should apply the standards set forth in the Restatement of Agency (Third).  The basic argument of Sachs and the government is that Bancec is an alter ego case, and that it did not supplant the traditional common law agency principles set forth in the Restatement.   See, e.g., Brief of the United States as Amicus Curiae 17-18.  That contention does not withstand scrutiny.

Let’s start with some basic principles – which are not mentioned in the briefs of the parties and amici in OBB v. Sachs.  Under traditional rules governing corporations, corporate entities are presumed to be separate and distinct from their creators or owners.  1 William Meade Fletcher et al., Cyclopedia of the law of private corporations § 25 (rev. ed. 1999).  Corporate acts “are the acts of the . . . corporation, and are not the acts of the shareholders composing it, and their powers and duties pertain to them respectively and not to each other[.]”  Id. at § 28. 

In “no particular is the distinction between the corporation and its members more marked and important than in suing and being sued.”  Id. at § 36.  Indeed, “limited liability is one of the principal purposes for which the law has created the corporation.”  Id. at § 41.20.  The rule of limited liability protects the owner or parent of a corporation from being sued for the corporation’s acts.  See, e.g., United States v. Bestfoods, 524 U.S. 51, 61 (1998) (“It is a general principle of corporate law deeply ingrained in our economic and legal systems that a parent corporation . . . is not liable for the acts of its subsidiaries.”).  The presumption of separateness requires courts to “start from the general rule that the corporate entity should be recognized and upheld, unless specific, unusual circumstances call for an exception.  Care should be taken on all occasions to avoid making the entire theory of the corporate entity . . . useless.”  Zubik v. Zubik, 384 F.2d 267, 273 (3d Cir. 1967).

There are two exceptions to the general rule of limited corporate liability.  The first is alter ego, which requires a plaintiff to “show that the corporate form has been abused to the injury of a third person.”  1 Fletcher, supra, § 41.10.  Alter ego is employed “where the corporate entity has been used as a subterfuge and to observe it would work an injustice.”  Id. at § 41.10; see also, e.g., Black’s Law Dictionary (10th ed. 2014) (defining the alter-ego rule as the “doctrine that shareholders will be treated as the owners of a corporation’s property, or as the real parties in interest, whenever it is necessary to do so to prevent fraud, illegality, or injustice”).  The “rationale behind the theory is that, if the shareholders or the corporations themselves disregard the proper formalities of a corporation, then the law will do likewise as necessary to protect individual and corporate creditors.”  1 Fletcher, supra, § 41.10.

The second exception is the existence of a principal-agent relationship.  As the Supreme Court has stated, “'[d]ominion may be so complete, interference so obtrusive, that by the general rules of agency the parent will be a principal and the subsidiary an agent.’”  NLRB v. Deena Artware, Inc., 361 U.S. 398, 403 (1960), quoting Berkey v. Third Ave. Ry. Co., 244 N.Y. 84, 95 (1926) (Justice Cardozo).

It is wrong to state that Bancec is only an alter ego case.  Instead, the Supreme Court in Bancec set forth both exceptions to the rule of limited corporate liability:

In discussing the legal status of private corporations, courts in the United States and abroad have recognized that an incorporated entity . . . is not to be regarded as legally separate from its owners in all circumstances.  Thus, where a corporate entity is so extensively controlled by its owner that a relationship of principal and agent is created, we have held that one may be held liable for the actions of the other.  In addition, our cases have long recognized the broader equitable principle that the doctrine of corporate entity, recognized generally and for most purposes, will not be regarded when to do so would work fraud or injustice.

Bancec, 462 U.S. at 628-29 (citations and quotations omitted) (emphasis added).  The first exception identified by Bancec is explicitly an agency relationship.  Bancec, 462 U.S. at 629, citing Deena Artware, Inc., 361 U.S. at 402-04 (“a relationship of principal and agent”).  The second Bancec exception is alter ego.  Id. (“work fraud or injustice”); see also 1 Fletcher, supra, § 41.10; Berkey, 244 N.Y. at 95.  In other words, contrary to the argument advanced by Sachs and the government, Bancec is not simply an alter ego case.  Bancec set forth the standard for both agency and alter ego in cases involving separate corporate entities and foreign sovereigns.

The real question, then, is whether it makes sense to apply Bancec at the jurisdictional stage under the FSIA.  As stated above, courts have done so for many years, and Bancec provides a workable standard through which to resolve the imputation issue.  Moreover, absent Bancec’s presumption of separateness applied to the jurisdictional inquiry, the floodgates would open to lawsuits against foreign states based upon conclusory allegations of “agency” and “authorization.”  As someone who has litigated Bancec at the jurisdictional stage in five separate FSIA cases, I know that Bancec affords a critical protection for foreign sovereigns from frivolous lawsuits and burdensome discovery (a point not mentioned in the briefs of the parties and amici).  If the Bancec jurisdictional protection is taken away by the Court, the result will be a major increase in (meritless) lawsuits against foreign sovereigns.  There is no reason to go down that path. 

In sum, OBB v. Sachs is a piece of cake – if the Court applies its own precedent.  The Court should apply Nelson with respect to the commercial activity inquiry, and should apply Bancec with regard to the agency issue.  If the Court takes that approach, it would avert a major upheaval in this sensitive area of the law – since Nelson and Bancec have been bulwarks of FSIA jurisprudence for decades.  The Court would also be avoiding a host of unintended consequences, including increased jurisdiction over foreign torts (in contravention to international law), disregard for the corporate form (with potentially serious comity and foreign relations consequences), and vitiation of several of the core protections afforded by the doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity.  The Court got these issues right before in Nelson and Bancec, and the Court could get them right again – simply by following the principle of stare decisis.

With Regard to the Commercial Activity Exception, OBB v. Sachs is an Easy Call

September 26, 2015 By in Commercial Activity Exception Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The commercial activity portion of OBB v. Sachs should be easy for the Supreme Court to resolve – as long as the Court follows its own precedent.

With respect to the commercial activity exception, OBB v. Sachs is indistinguishable from Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349 (1993).  In the Nelson case, Saudi Arabia recruited Nelson in the United States for employment as a monitoring systems engineer at a hospital in Saudi Arabia.  Id. at 351-52.  After Nelson began his new job in Saudi Arabia and discovered safety defects in the hospital’s oxygen and nitrous oxide lines, he was falsely imprisoned and beaten by agents of the foreign state. Id. at 352.  Upon his return to the United States, Nelson filed suit against Saudi Arabia for a range of intentional torts and for the failure to warn Nelson about the dangers of the employment position.  Id. at 352-53.  Nelson sought to establish jurisdiction under the first clause of the commercial activity exception.  Id. at 354.

In short, Nelson involved a plaintiff who sought to establish jurisdiction over torts occurring overseas under the first clause of the commercial activity exception, on the theory that the action was “based upon” the preceding commercial activity (the recruitment) in the United States.  That is exactly what Sachs is trying to do – she is seeking to establish jurisdiction over alleged tortious conduct occurring overseas under the first clause of the commercial activity exception, based upon the argument that the lawsuit is “based upon” the preceding commercial activity (the ticket sale) in the United States.

The Supreme Court in Nelson rejected the plaintiff’s jurisdictional theory:

In this case, the Nelsons have alleged that petitioners recruited Scott Nelson for work at the hospital, signed an employment contract with him, and subsequently employed him. While these activities led to the conduct that eventually injured the Nelsons, they are not the basis for the Nelsons’ suit. Even taking each of the Nelsons’ allegations about Scott Nelson’s recruitment and employment as true, those facts alone entitle the Nelsons to nothing under their theory of the case. The Nelsons have not, after all, alleged breach of contract, . . . but personal injuries caused by petitioners’ intentional wrongs and by petitioners’ negligent failure to warn Scott Nelson that they might commit those wrongs. Those torts, and not the arguably commercial activities that preceded their commission, form the basis for the Nelsons’ suit.

Nelson, 507 U.S. at 358.  As OBB persuasively argued in its merits brief, this paragraph from Nelson should control the result in Sachs.  It’s an easy call.

There is one additional issue relating to the applicability of Nelson.  With regard to when a lawsuit is “based upon” commercial activity, the parties dispute at some length whether Nelson requires a gravamen approach or an elements approach to a plaintiff’s complaint.  Yet while Nelson contained sloppy language that could be interpreted to support an elements approach (Nelson, 507 U.S. at 357), the Nelson Court clearly used a gravamen approach.  It did not methodically review Nelson’s sixteen causes of action to determine whether some of the claims contained elements that required proof of commercial activity in the United States.  Instead, Nelson used a gravamen analysis, as reflected by its discussion of the failure to warn claim:

In addition to the intentionally tortious conduct, the Nelsons claim a separate basis for recovery in petitioners’ failure to warn Scott Nelson of the hidden dangers associated with his employment. The Nelsons allege that, at the time petitioners recruited Scott Nelson and thereafter, they failed to warn him of the possibility of severe retaliatory action if he attempted to disclose any safety hazards he might discover on the job.  In other words, petitioners bore a duty to warn of their own propensity for tortious conduct. But this is merely a semantic ploy. For aught we can see, a plaintiff could recast virtually any claim of intentional tort committed by sovereign act as a claim of failure to warn, simply by charging the defendant with an obligation to announce its own tortious propensity before indulging it. To give jurisdictional significance to this feint of language would effectively thwart the Act’s manifest purpose to codify the restrictive theory of foreign sovereign immunity.

Nelson, 507 U.S. at 363.  In other words, with regard to Nelson, one should do as the Court did, and not as the Court said.  Its actual holding makes clear that gravamen is the proper method of analysis.  However, the sloppy “elements” language in Nelson has indeed caused confusion in FSIA jurisprudence over the years, and Sachs is the perfect opportunity to clean it up.

There are several final important points with regard to the gravamen issue that neither the parties nor the amici mentions in their briefs – but that the Supreme Court would be well-served to consider.  First, the gravamen approach has a long history under the FTCA.  See, e.g., United States v. Neustadt, 366 U.S. 696 (1961).  Given the general principle that courts should treat foreign sovereigns how the United States government itself is treated in its own courts (see, e.g., Von Mehren, The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 17 Colum. J. Transnat’l L. 33, 45 (1978)), it makes sense to apply the gravamen rule under the FSIA.  See Nelson, 507 U.S. at 363 (citing United States v. Shearer, 473 U.S. 52, 54-55 (1985), in support of its gravamen approach).

Second, the gravamen analysis has been employed by courts in FSIA cases for thirty years.  See, e.g., De Sanchez v. Banco Central de Nicaragua, 770 F.2d 1385, 1398 (5th Cir. 1985); Garb v. Republic of Poland, 440 F.3d 579, 588 (2d Cir. 2006); O’Bryan v. Holy See, 556 F.3d 361, 379-80 (6th Cir. 2009).  It makes little sense to overturn that precedent now, both because the gravamen approach has worked well and because it would create unnecessary confusion in this sensitive area of the law.

Third, an abandonment of the gravamen approach would invite gamesmanship by plaintiffs’ counsel.  To provide an example, I once litigated a personal injury tort case where the plaintiff included a meritless breach of contract cause of action to establish jurisdiction under the commercial activity exception.  There was no colorable breach of contract claim, but the alleged claim could have been enough – in the absence of the gravamen approach – for the court to take jurisdiction and order discovery.  With the gravamen approach, I was able to make a strong argument that the case should be analyzed under the tort exception rather than the commercial activity exception.  That case – and others like it – shows that the gravamen analysis prevents jurisdiction from being based upon clever tactical ploys, and thereby serves to protect the integrity of the FSIA’s jurisdictional provisions.

Despite some sloppy language that can easily be fixed, Nelson was correctly decided.  It has been a bulwark of FSIA jurisprudence for over twenty years.  With regard to the commercial activity issue in OBB v. Sachs, the Supreme Court should simply apply Nelson – and order the dismissal of Sachs’ lawsuit.

Sachs’s Meritless Commercial Activity Argument

September 14, 2015 By in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Last week, I examined the problems with the main attribution argument advanced by OBB in the Supreme Court.  Now it is time to analyze the merits of one of the central commercial activity arguments proffered by Sachs. 

The first clause of the commercial activity exception requires that a plaintiff’s action be “based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States by the foreign state.”  28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2).  As a result, to establish jurisdiction under section 1605(a)(2)’s first clause, Sachs must show that her action – which arises from a railway accident in Innsbruck, Austria – is based upon a commercial activity carried on in the United States by OBB.

In her merits brief, Sachs argues that her claims are based upon “OBB’s overall commercial railway enterprise.”  There are three problems with Sachs’s argument.

First, Sachs did not advance the argument below.  It may be that Sachs can avoid a claim of waiver because the issue relates to subject matter jurisdiction (cf. Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(h)(3)), but the fact that Sachs did not raise the argument before her merits brief in the Supreme Court does not inspire confidence.  Like OBB’s novel (and unsupported) agency argument, this was probably an idea that would have been best left on the cutting room floor.

Second, Sachs’s claim ignores a host of FSIA cases (which are also not cited in OBB’s reply on the merits).  Under established law, a plaintiff cannot rely on a sovereign’s alleged general commercial activities under the commercial activity exception.  As courts have repeatedly held for over thirty-five years, it is not the sovereign’s general commercial activities that matter for purposes of the exception:

The focus of the exception to immunity recognized in § 1605(a)(2) is not on whether the defendant generally engages in a commercial enterprise or activity. . . ; rather, it is on whether the particular conduct giving rise to the claim in question actually constitutes or is in connection with commercial activity, regardless of the defendant’s generally commercial or governmental character.

Arango v. Guzman Travel Advisors Corp., 621 F.2d 1371, 1379 (5th Cir. 1980); see also, e.g., Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Med. Ctr. v. Hellenic Republic, 877 F.2d 574, 580 n.8 (7th Cir. 1989) (same); Jungquist v. Sheikh Sultan Bin Khalifa Al Nahyan, 115 F.3d 1020, 1030 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (stating that the plaintiffs “confuse general activity related to the claim with the specific activity upon which the claim is based”); cf. Sun v. Taiwan, 201 F.3d 1105, 1109 (9th Cir. 2000) (holding that the “focus must be solely upon those specific acts that form the basis of the suit”).  In other words, if the Supreme Court accepts Sachs’s argument, it would be overturning decades of FSIA precedent.  The Court would also be swinging the gates wide open to jurisdiction under the first clause of the commercial activity exception, since plaintiffs’ lawyers can almost always conjure an underlying general commercial activity that can serve as a “basis” for their suits.

Finally, Sachs’s argument lacks merit because OBB “carries on” its “overall commercial railway enterprise” in Austria – and not, as the first clause of the commercial activity exception requires, “in the United States.”  28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2).  I understand that Sachs relies on section 1603(e), which defines a “commercial activity carried on in the United States by a foreign state” to mean “commercial activity carried on by such state and having substantial contact with the United States.”  28 U.S.C. § 1605(e).  However, Sachs cannot have it both ways.  If the commercial activity is deemed to be the ticket sale by the travel agency in Massachusetts (and that sale is attributable to OBB), then it may be true that the sale constitutes commercial activity carried on in the United States by OBB.  See Sachs v. Republic of Austria, 737 F.3d 584, 598-99 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).  Yet, for reasons I will explain in a subsequent post, Sachs’s lawsuit is not based upon the ticket sale.  And even if a plaintiff were not precluded under FSIA precedent from relying on a foreign state’s general commercial activity, OBB’s operation of its “overall commercial railway enterprise” is carried on in Austria; OBB is Austria’s national railroad company, and it appears undisputed that OBB does not have offices, employees or bank accounts in the United States. 

On its face, this analysis may seem hyper-technical and unfair to Sachs.  The opposite is true.  It is Sachs who is trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.  Sachs’s claims, after all, arise from an alleged tortious act or omission occurring in Austria in connection with a commercial activity overseas.  Sachs should therefore be asserting jurisdiction under the third clause of the commercial activity exception.  Cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2) (third clause stating that a foreign state is not immune in any case based “upon an act outside the territory of the United States in connection with a commercial activity of the foreign state elsewhere and that act causes a direct effect in the United States”).  Sachs is not doing so, presumably because she cannot demonstrate the requisite “direct effect in the United States” under existing law.  See, e.g., Zernicek v. Brown & Root, Inc., 826 F.2d 415, 418 (5th Cir.1987) (“consequential damages [from personal injury tort abroad] are insufficient to constitute a ‘direct effect in the United States’ for purposes of abrogating sovereign immunity”).  Sachs also cannot assert jurisdiction under the FSIA’s tort exception for her slip-and-fall case, because the alleged tortious conduct occurred overseas.  See  Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 441 (1989) (stating that the FSIA’s tort exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(5), “covers only torts occurring within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States”).  As a result, to get around the requirements of the FSIA’s other (and more applicable) exceptions to sovereign immunity, Sachs is forced to proceed under the first clause of the commercial activity exception.  However, reliance on that clause does not work — at least not if Sachs’ argument is based on OBB’s general commercial activity of operating a national railway in Austria.

In the end, because she cannot rely on OBB’s general commercial activity in Austria, Sachs is stuck with arguing that her personal injury action is “based upon” the ticket sale in the United States.  As I will explain in subsequent posts, that should spell the end of Sachs’s lawsuit under existing Supreme Court precedent.

[Next week, I will examine why the Supreme Court’s decision in Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349 (1993), should control the result in OBB v. Sachs.]

OBB’s Novel “Agency or Instrumentality” Argument Revisited

September 11, 2015 By in Agency Tags: , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

OBB v. Sachs is scheduled for oral argument in the United States Supreme Court on October 5, 2015.  During the period leading up to oral argument, I intend to publish a series of posts regarding issues in the Sachs case.  My general view is that Sachs is an easy case to resolve under Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349 (1993), but that there is potential for a major mistake by the Supreme Court on the critical issue of attribution.  I will provide more information on these key points in the upcoming weeks.

Today, I want to focus on an issue that I have discussed before, namely OBB’s argument that the determination of whether an entity is an “agent” of a foreign state should be resolved through the definition of “agency or instrumentality” set forth in 28 U.S.C. section 1603(b).  I will not revisit the points I made in previous posts (here and here).  I do, however, want to add three points:

(1) OBB did not raise its argument that section 1603(b) controls the inquiry of whether an entity is an “agent” of a foreign state during district court proceedings.  OBB also did not raise the argument in its main briefing before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.  Instead, OBB raised the issue for the first time during oral argument on en banc rehearing, and was subsequently ordered by the Ninth Circuit to submit supplemental briefing addressing its new argument.  See Sachs v. Republic of Austria, 737 F.3d 584, 594 n. 7 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).  OBB’s novel argument – which was contrary to FSIA precedent – was thereafter squarely rejected by the Ninth Circuit.  Sachs, 737 F.3d at 594-98.  That OBB itself did not see fit to raise the issue until oral argument on en banc rehearing fails to inspire confidence, and a closer look shows why OBB’s novel interpretation of the FSIA should have remained on the cutting room floor.

(2) OBB’s argument would require an extremely strained (and confusing) interpretation of 28 U.S.C. section 1603.  The relevant portion of section 1603 states:

(a) A “foreign state”, except as used in section 1608 of this title, includes a political subdivision of a foreign state or an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state as defined in subsection (b).

(b) An “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state” means any entity—

. . .

(2) which is an organ of a foreign state or political subdivision thereof, or a majority of whose shares or other ownership interest is owned by a foreign state or political subdivision thereof

. . . .

28 U.S.C. § 1603(a), (b)(2).  For OBB’s argument to work, the term “foreign state” in section 1603(b) must include “agencies or instrumentalities” of foreign states; otherwise, under OBB’s framework, an “agency or instrumentality” of a foreign state could never be held to have an “agent.”  Yet, as applied to OBB’s situation (that is, the question of whether an entity is an agent of an agency or instrumentality), OBB’s interpretation would effectively yield a statute that states the following:

(b) An “agency or instrumentality of [an agency or instrumentality of] a foreign state” means any entity—

. . .

(2) which is an organ of [an agency or instrumentality of] a foreign state or political subdivision thereof, or a majority of whose shares or other ownership interest is owned by [an agency or instrumentality of] a foreign state or political subdivision thereof

. . . .

Such a reading of section 1603(b) is not only deeply confusing, but it is also inconsonant with the statute’s use of the term “political subdivision thereof” (since agencies or instrumentalities of a foreign state do not have “political subdivisions”).  In other words, when section 1603(b) used the term “foreign state,” it was referring to foreign states proper – such as the Republic of Austria – and not to agencies or instrumentalities of a foreign state.  That is, in fact, exactly what the FSIA’s legislative history demonstrates.  See H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 15 (1976) (stating that an agency or instrumentality must “be either an organ of a foreign state (or of a foreign state’s political subdivision), or that a majority of the entity’s shares or other ownership interest be owned by a foreign state (or by a foreign state’s political subdivision)”).  It is also what the Supreme Court concluded in Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson, 538 U.S. 468 (2003), when the Court held “that only direct ownership of a majority of shares by the foreign state satisfies the statutory requirement [set forth in section 1603(b)(2)].”  Id. at 474 (emphasis added).

There is, in short, no statutory support for OBB’s approach.  Nothing in the FSIA indicates that a court first needs to examine section 1603(b) to determine whether the defendant (like OBB) is an agency or instrumentality of a foreign state, and then re-examine section 1603(b) to determine whether the putative agent is an “agency or instrumentality” of the “agency or instrumentality.”  No court has ever adopted that type of circular analysis under section 1603, and for good reason: it makes no sense. 

(3) OBB’s agency or instrumentality argument fails for another reason: it would render far too many entities incapable of being deemed an “agent” of a foreign state, and thereby deeply undermine the FSIA’s commercial activity exception.

Consider the following scenario: through individual intermediaries, a foreign state creates a separate corporation in New York State.  The foreign state exercises extensive day-to-day control over the corporation, which engages in a series of commercial transactions in the United States.  After the corporation’s conduct leads to multi-million dollar losses for a number of United States citizens, the individuals damaged file suit against the corporation and the foreign state.  Their main jurisdictional argument under the FSIA is that the corporation was an agent of the foreign state through the latter’s exercise of day-to-day control, and that the corporation’s conduct is attributable to the foreign state for jurisdictional purposes. 

Under OBB’s (mis)interpretation of section 1603(b), the plaintiffs in this scenario could not proceed against the foreign state itself because the corporation does not meet the definition of an agency or instrumentality under the FSIA.  The corporation was created in New York, not in the foreign state, and therefore could never (under OBB’s theory) be an agent of a foreign state.  See 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b)(3) (stating that an “agency or instrumentality of a foreign state” means any entity which, inter alia, “is neither a citizen of a State of the United States as defined in section 1332(c) and (e) of this title, nor created under the laws of any third country”).  The same would hold true if the foreign state created the entity under the law of a third country, such as the law of the Bahamas or Panama.  In fact, OBB’s formulation would provide a blueprint to foreign states about how to engage in commercial activity in the United States without risking the possibility of litigation: if the foreign state engages in commercial activity through a corporation created under the law of the United States or a third country, it will never be held to engage in commercial activity in the United States — even if the foreign state exercises day-to-day control over the corporation created, and effectively engages in extensive commercial activity in the United States through the nominally separate corporation.

OBB’s position, in other words, would profoundly undermine the effectiveness of the FSIA’s commercial activity exception.  Where a foreign state dominates a separate corporation to such an extent that a principal-agent relationship is created, courts must be permitted to attribute the corporation’s conduct to the foreign state for jurisdictional purposes.  Otherwise, the first clause of the commercial activity exception would contain a loophole that would swallow the exception itself.

[Next week, I will examine Sachs’s argument that OBB’s “overall commercial railway enterprise” satisfies the “commercial activity” requirement under the first clause of the FSIA’s commercial activity exception.]

CVSG in OBB v. Sachs

May 21, 2014 By in Agency Tags: , , Leave a comment

On May 19, 2014, the United States Supreme Court invited the Solicitor General to file a brief in OBB v. Sachs (No. 13-1067), a case that I have previously discussed.  Given that Sachs involves the key issue of attribution under the FSIA — an issue that has not be addressed by the Supreme Court for over thirty years — it will be very interesting to see the Solicitor General’s response to the CVSG.

An Austrian Instrumentality’s “Agency” Error

April 29, 2014 By in Agency Tags: , , , , , , Leave a comment

On March 5, 2014, OBB Personenverkehr AG (“OBB”) – an instrumentality of the Republic of Austria – filed a petition for a writ of certiorari seeking the Supreme Court’s review of the Ninth Circuit’s opinion in Sachs v. Republic of Austria, 737 F.3d 584 (9th Cir. 2013) (en banc).  The matter is scheduled for conference on May 2, 2014.  See United States Supreme Court Docket for OBB Personenverkehr AG v. Carol P. Sachs, No. 13-1067.  While I have written about OBB’s argument regarding agency and attribution before, I wanted to revisit the issue in light of the pending Supreme Court proceeding. 

The facts of the Sachs case are relatively straightforward.  The plaintiff, a California resident, purchased a Eurail pass from Rail Pass Experts (“RPE”), an online ticket seller based in Massachusetts.  RPE and OBB have no direct relationship; instead, RPE may be a subagent of The Eurail Group, an entity incorporated in Luxemburg whose membership comprises 30 rail carriers (including OBB).  The plaintiff suffered severe injuries while trying to board a train in Innsbruck, Austria, that was bound for Prague.  She sued OBB for her injuries.

There are several interesting legal issues in Sachs, but here I want to focus on the main argument that OBB raises in the Supreme Court.  OBB argues that United States courts lack jurisdiction because the acts of RPE cannot be imputed to OBB.  That contention is what one would usually expect from a defendant in such a case, since attribution is a critical issue under the FSIA in general (and under the first clause of the commercial activity exception in particular).  But OBB goes one step further, claiming that courts must determine whether an entity is an “agent” of a foreign state by utilizing the “agency or instrumentality” test set forth in 28 U.S.C. section 1603.  According to OBB, “to determine whether the acts of RPE were acts ‘by the foreign state,’ the Ninth Circuit should have looked to the definitions of ‘foreign state’ and ‘agency’ [in section 1603] to decide if RPE is an agent of OBB.”  OBB’s Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, at 18. 

OBB’s “agency” argument is meritless.

The term “agency or instrumentality” in section 1603 has nothing to do with attribution.  Instead, section 1603’s definition of “agency or instrumentality” identifies which entities are entitled to the protections of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.  28 U.S.C. § 1603.  Section 1603 shows unequivocally that RPE is not entitled to foreign sovereign immunity, since it is a Massachusetts corporation.  Cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b)(3) (requiring a foreign state to be “neither a citizen of a State of the United States . . .  nor created under the laws of any third country”).  However, section 1603 does not address – much less resolve – the issue of whether RPE’s conduct is attributable to OBB.

OBB’s claim that the term “agency or instrumentality” in section 1603 refers to attribution ignores that the FSIA was not written on a blank slate.  The statute used “agency or instrumentality” because it was a term of art long utilized by courts and commentators during the period preceding the FSIA in discussing whether an entity was entitled to foreign sovereign immunity.  See, e.g., Et Ve Balike Kurumu v. B.N.S. International Sales Corp., 204 N.Y.S.2d 971, 974 (1960) (“where the corporation functions as a public agency or instrumentality or where evidence of corporate separateness from the government was not strong, immunity has been granted”); F.W. Stone Engineering Co. v. Petreolos Mexicanos, 42 Atl.2d 57, 60 (1945) (discussing immunity of foreign state “instrumentality”); United States of Mexico v. Schmuck, 56 N.E.2d 577 (1944) (discussing immunity of “public agency” of foreign state); Dunlap v. Banco Central Del Ecuador, 41 N.Y.S.2d 650, 652 (1943) (discussing immunity of “instrumentality” and “agency” of foreign government); Telkes v. Hungarian Nat’l Museum, 38 N.Y.S.2d 419 (1942) (holding that a suit is not maintainable if “the defendant is an agency or instrumentality of [a foreign state] exercising a governmental function”); Hannes v. Kingdom of Roumania Monopolies Institute, 20 N.Y.S.2d 825, 832 (1940) (stating that foreign sovereign immunity extends to “instrumentalities” of a foreign state); United States v. Deutsches Kalisyndikat Gesellschaft, 31 F.2d 199, 202 (S.D.N.Y.1929) (holding that “instrumentalities in which there are private interests” are not entitled to immunity); Molina v. Comision Reguladora Del Mercado de Henequen, 91 N.J.L. 382 (Supreme Court of New Jersey, 1918) (discussing the lack of immunity of “governmental agencies”); see also, e.g., Comment, The Jurisdictional Immunity of Foreign Sovereigns, 63 Yale L.J. 1148, 1152-53 (1954) (“Traditional doctrine grants immunity to government agencies, commissions, and other instrumentalities unless they have corporate personality.”); Bernard Fensterwald, Sovereign Immunity and Soviet State Trading, 63 Harv.L.Rev. 614, 619-20 (1950) (discussing distinction between incorporated and unincorporated “agencies” of a foreign government); Arthur Kuhn, The Extension of Sovereign Immunity to Government-Owned Commercial Corporations, 39 Am. J. Int’l. L. 772, 772 ( 1945) (“The distinction between agencies of foreign governments engaged in a public function and those which are engaged in purely private commercial transactions has long been recognized.”); cf. Note, Immunity from Suit of Foreign Sovereign Instrumentalities and Obligations, 50 Yale L.J. 1088, 1089 (1941); William C. Hoffman, The Separate Entity Rule in International Perspective: Should State Ownership of Corporate Shares Confer Sovereign Status for Immunity Purposes?, 65 Tul. L. Rev. 535, 546 (1991).

Consistent with the treatment of the agency/instrumentality issue before the enactment of the FSIA, the section-by-section analysis accompanying the first proposed iteration of the FSIA discussed the bill’s use of the term as follows:

An ‘agency or instrumentality’ of a state . . . could assume a variety of forms – a state trading corporation, a transport organization such as a shipping line or airline, or a banking activity.  The traditional rule was that such agencies and instrumentalities of a foreign government were entitled to the same immunities as the government itself, especially if they engaged in clearly governmental activities.

Departments of State and Justice, Section-by-Section Analysis, 119 Cong. Rec. 2216 (1973). 

Similarly, the FSIA’s House Report stated that “entities which meet the definition of an ‘agency or instrumentality of a foreign state’ could assume a variety of forms,  including a state trading corporation, a mining enterprise, a transport organization such as a shipping line or airline, a steel company, a central bank, an export association, a governmental procurement agency or a department or ministry which acts and is suable in its own name.”  H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 15-16 (1976).  The report made it clear that the agency/instrumentality definition set forth in section 1603 was intended solely to determine whether a particular entity was entitled to claim sovereign immunity.  See id. at 15 (“An entity which does not fall within the definitions of sections 1603 (a) or  (b) would not be entitled to sovereign immunity in any case before a Federal or State court.  On the other hand, the fact that an entity is an ‘agency or instrumentality of a foreign state’ does not in itself establish an entitlement to sovereign immunity.  A court would have to consider whether one of the sovereign immunity exceptions contained in the bill . . . was applicable.”).  Nothing in the legislative history suggests that section 1603 was intended to address the issue of attribution.

Litigants’ past attempts to characterize section 1603 as setting forth the standard for attribution have not fared well.  As the Fifth Circuit explained twenty-five years ago:

The FSIA uses [the term] to determine whether an “agency” of the state may potentially qualify for foreign sovereign immunity itself under the FSIA. This is a completely different question from that which we must address here: whether or not the [entity] enjoyed an alter ego relationship with the [foreign sovereign] so that it could bind [the sovereign] to a contract. Although such an alter ego relationship may be described in terms of “agency,” it is a completely different inquiry than that which might be conducted under § 1603.

Hester Int’l Corp. v. Fed. Republic of Nigeria, 879 F.2d 170, 176 (5th Cir. 1989); see also, e.g., Gates v. Victor Fine Foods, 54 F.3d 1457, 1460 n.1 (9th Cir. 1995) (same).  In addition, the argument makes little sense: if OBB’s interpretation were accepted, a foreign state could freely use agents who did not meet the definition of section 1603 – such as individuals (cf. Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U.S. 305, 314-19 (2010)) or a corporation in the United States or in a third country (cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b)(3)) – and avoid jurisdiction even though the foreign state explicitly authorized the agent’s relevant conduct in the United States.  Such an approach would create a hole that could swallow the doctrine of restrictive immunity, since foreign states would have an easy method through which to engage in commercial conduct without the risk of litigation.

In the end, OBB’s argument should be rejected.  More importantly, with regard to whether OBB’s certiorari petition should be granted, it is clear that there is no circuit split (or conflict with Supreme Court precedent) with respect to the issue of section 1603 and attribution.  In fact, all courts have agreed that section 1603 has nothing to do with attribution.  Regarding this issue, at least, the Supreme Court’s decision in Sachs is easy: certiorari should be denied.

Recent Development: Smith Rocke Ltd. v. República Bolivariana de Venezuela

February 3, 2014 By in International Takings Exception Tags: , , , , , , , Leave a comment

On January 27, 2014, District Judge Schofield granted Venezuela’s motion to dismiss a lawsuit arising out of the expropriation of a Venezuelan company and its assets.  See Smith Rocke Ltd. v. Republica Boliviariana de Venezuela, 12 CV. 7316 LGS, 2014 WL 288705 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 27, 2014).  The district court’s opinion addressed several important issues under the FSIA:

Sovereign Activity: The court concluded that the commercial activity exception did not apply because the case was based upon a sovereign act – the expropriation a Venezuelan company – rather than commercial activity.  Smith Rocke Ltd., 2014 WL 288705, at *4.  In my view, foreign states do not sufficiently rely upon the “sovereign activity” defense in FSIA cases.  There is a tendency for attorneys to assume that the commercial activity exception applies if the case involves commercial conduct or a breach of contract.  However, even in the context of a commercial dispute, defense counsel in FSIA cases must carefully examine the allegations and determine whether the requirements of section 1605(a)(2) are met.  That includes an analysis of whether the sovereign activity defense applies.  See, e.g., Braka v. Bancomer, S.N.C., 762 F.2d 222, 225 (2d Cir. 1985) (no jurisdiction under commercial activity exception where contractual breach caused by the exercise of sovereign power); MOL, Inc. v. Peoples Republic of Bangladesh, 736 F.2d 1326, 1328 (9th Cir. 1984) (no jurisdiction under commercial activity exception where licensing agreement and its alleged breach concerned Bangladesh’s sovereign right to regulate its natural resources).

Gravamen Rule: In determining that the commercial activity exception did not apply, the district court held that only the expropriation exception could confer jurisdiction because the “gravamen here is that Defendants engaged in the unlawful taking of [the property] . . . without compensation, in violation of international law.”  Smith Rocke Ltd., 2014 WL 288705, at *4.  Judge Schofield’s reliance on the gravamen rule was correct, and highlights yet another critical issue for a sovereign challenging jurisdiction under the FSIA.  Cf. Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349, 363 (1993); O’Bryan v. Holy See, 556 F.3d 361, 380 (6th Cir. 2009); Garb v. Republic of Poland, 440 F.3d 579, 588 (2d Cir. 2006); Randolph v. Budget Rent-A-Car, 97 F.3d 319, 324 (9th Cir. 1996); de Sanchez v. Banco Cent. de Nicaragua, 770 F.2d 1385, 1398 (5th Cir. 1985).

Violation of International Law: In holding that the expropriation exception did not confer jurisdiction, Judge Schofield applied the “widely accepted” rule “that the taking of property by a state from its own nationals does not violate international law.”  Smith Rocke Ltd., 2014 WL 288705, at *7; see also, e.g., Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677, 713 (2004) (Breyer, J., joined by Souter, J., concurring).  The court also made it clear that what counts is the nationality of the property owner at the time of the seizure itself.  Id. at *7; cf. Siderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, 965 F.2d 699, 704, 711 (9th Cir. 1992) (plaintiff who became United States citizen prior to the taking could invoke the expropriation exception).

Capacity: The capacity issue under the FSIA – which I have addressed before – is likely to become increasingly important in the post-Samantar era.  In Smith Rocke Ltd., the district court dismissed the individual defendants because they were sued in their official capacity; as the court noted, “where an official is sued in his official capacity, and where the action is clearly against the foreign state itself as the real party in interest, the case may be treated as an action ‘against the foreign state itself, as the state is the real party in interest.’”  Smith Rocke Ltd., 2014 WL 288705, at *11, quoting Samantar v. Yousef, 560 U.S. 305, 325 (2010).

Recent Development: TJGEM LLC v. Republic of Ghana

January 9, 2014 By in Commercial Activity Exception Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

In the recent case of TJGEM LLC v. Republic of Ghana, — F. Supp. 2d —, CV 13-382 (BAH), 2013 WL 6857988 (D.D.C. Dec. 31, 2013), District Judge Beryl Howell applied three important rules that are often implicated in cases under the FSIA’s commercial activity exception.

First, the district court emphasized that the commercial activity exception does not apply where the alleged commercial activity is unrelated to a plaintiff’s claims.  Id. at *5; see also, e.g., Transatlantic Shiffahrtskontor GmbH v. Shanghai Foreign Trade Corp., 204 F.3d 384, 390 (2d Cir. 2000) (holding that the term “‘based upon’ [under the commercial activity exception] requires a degree of closeness between the acts giving rise to the cause of action and those needed to establish jurisdiction that is considerably greater than common law causation requirements”).

Second, the court followed Phaneuf v. Republic of Indonesia, 106 F.3d 302, 308 (9th Cir.1997), in holding that apparent authority is insufficient to confer jurisdiction over a foreign state under the commercial activity exception.  TJGEM LLC, 2013 WL 6857988, at *6; see also The Second Circuit’s Apparent FSIA Authority.

Third, the district court reaffirmed that an alleged financial loss to an American individual or firm does not satisfy the “direct effect” requirement of section 1605(a)(2)’s third clause.  TJGEM LLC, 2013 WL 6857988, at *6; see also Recent Development: The D.C. Circuit’s Latest FSIA Decision.

District Judge Howell’s decision is interesting with respect to another issue that I have previously addressed on this blog.  The district court held that to “survive a motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), the plaintiff must establish the court’s jurisdiction over the subject matter by a preponderance of the evidence.”  TJGEM LLC, 2013 WL 6857988, at *4.  The TJGEM case is therefore the latest opinion to indicate that traditional subject matter jurisdiction procedural rules apply with respect to a plaintiff’s burden under the FSIA. See Peterson v. Islamic Republic Of Iran, 627 F.3d 1117, 1125 (9th Cir. 2010) (“It must fall to the plaintiff to prove that immunity does not exist.”); see also Am. Telecom Co., L.L.C. v. Republic of Lebanon, 501 F.3d 534, 537 (6th Cir. 2007).

An Unprofitable Test Under the FSIA’s Commercial Activity Exception

December 1, 2013 By in Commercial Activity Exception Tags: , , , , Leave a comment

The relevance of profit motive under the FSIA’s commercial activity exception is the subject of continued confusion.  The Second Circuit claims that the Seventh Circuit mischaracterizes its “profit” precedent (see, e.g., NML Capital, Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina, 680 F.3d 254, 259 (2d Cir. 2012)), and circuit courts have abrogated district court opinions addressing profit motive.  See Intercontinental Dictionary Series v. De Gruyter, 822 F. Supp. 662 (C.D. Cal. 1993), abrogated by Sun v. Taiwan, 201 F.3d 1105 (9th Cir. 2000); see also Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, 362 F. Supp. 2d 298, 314 n.5 (D.D.C. 2005).  As one commentator recently stated, “insofar as ‘profit’ is concerned, the legislative instructions are ambiguous and misleading, while the case law appears unsettled at best.”  Yang, State Immunity in International Law 92 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012).  There is, in short, a distinct need for clarity, and this post seeks to explain the proper use of profit motive under section 1605(a)(2).

The FSIA Forecloses Subjective Profit Inquiries.  Although some litigants continue to argue that a foreign sovereign’s subjective profit motive remains relevant under the commercial activity exception, there is no doubt that the FSIA precludes such an inquiry.  Section 1603(d) specifically commands that “[t]he commercial character of an activity shall be determined by reference to the nature of the course of conduct or particular transaction or act, rather than by reference to its purpose.”  28 U.S.C. § 1603(d).  Consistent with the statute’s plain language, the Supreme Court has unambiguously held that the “question is not whether the foreign government is acting with a profit motive.”   Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc., 504 U.S. 607, 614 (1992).  Notwithstanding litigants’ occasional attempts to invoke a sovereign’s motive, any argument based upon a sovereign’s subjective profit motive (or lack thereof) has long been rejected by the courts.  See, e.g., NML Capital, Ltd., 680 F.3d at 260 (“The [sovereign’s] lack of a profit motive is simply irrelevant.”); Beg v. Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 353 F.3d 1323, 1327 n.1 (11th Cir. 2003) (“We decline to examine the government’s motives in determining what is commercial activity.”); see also, e.g., Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke’s Med. Ctr. v. Hellenic Republic, 877 F.2d 574, 581 (7th Cir. 1989); Joseph v. Office of Consulate Gen. of Nigeria, 830 F.2d 1018, 1024 (9th Cir. 1987).

An Objective Profit Inquiry Can be Used to Determine if an Activity is Commercial. In the section-by-section analysis addressing section 1603(d), the FSIA’s legislative history stated that “if an activity is customarily carried on for profit, its commercial nature could readily be assumed.”  H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 16 (1976) (emphasis added).  As stated by the Second Circuit, “where a private party would customarily engage in an activity for profit, there can be little question that that private party is engaging in commercial activity.  When a foreign sovereign engages in the same conduct, that activity retains its commercial nature, even though the foreign sovereign acts without a profit motive.”  Weltover, Inc. v. Republic of Argentina, 941 F.2d 145, 150 (2d Cir. 1991); see also NML Capital, Ltd., 680 F.3d at 259-60; EM Ltd. v. Republic of Argentina, 389 F. App’x 38, 44 (2d Cir. 2010); Sun, 201 F.3d at 1108; MCI Telecommunications Corp. v. Alhadhood, 82 F.3d 658, 663 (5th Cir. 1996); United States v. Moats, 961 F.2d 1198, 1205 (5th Cir. 1992); Gould, Inc. v. Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann, 853 F.2d 445, 452 (6th Cir. 1988).  The inquiry is not a subjective one directed at the foreign sovereign defendant, but instead an objective one based upon a theoretical “private person” engaged in the same conduct.

However, as some courts have pointed out, there are activities carried on “for profit” that should not be construed commercial activities under the FSIA:

Although trafficking in persons and property captured by sovereign entities solely for profit is certainly not unknown within the international community, this Court is of the opinion that state-supported kidnapping, hostage-taking, and similar universally criminal ventures were simply not the sorts of proprietary enterprises within the contemplation of Congress when it enacted the “commercial activity” exception to FSIA in conferring jurisdiction upon federal courts to entertain cases against foreign sovereigns.

Cicippio v. Islamic Republic of Iran, CIV. A. 92-2300, 1993 WL 730748, at *2 (D.D.C. Mar. 13, 1993) aff’d, 30 F.3d 164 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see also Mwani v. bin Laden, 417 F.3d 1, 16-17 (D.C. Cir. 2005).  The scenarios set forth in the Cicippio opinion – and other conceivable situations where the nature of a profitable activity demonstrates that it is not “commercial” – suggest potential limits of any objective profit inquiry.

Courts are Divided as to Whether an Objective Profit Inquiry Can be Used to Determine that an Activity is Not Commercial.  Relying on the same language from the FSIA’s legislative history, several courts have concluded that an activity that is customarily not undertaken for profit by private persons should be deemed noncommercial under section 1605(a)(2).  See, e.g., Amorrortu v. Republic of Peru, 570 F. Supp. 2d 916, 923 (S.D. Tex. 2008) aff’d, 325 F. App’x 400 (5th Cir. 2009) (“confiscation and expropriation are not commercial actions, for they are not actions of a nature that a private person would, or could, engage in for profit”); see also Intercontinental Dictionary Series, 822 F. Supp. at 676 (“the compilation of a linguistic treatise spanning decades and the lifetimes of many scholars is not of the type an individual would customarily carry on for profit”) (quotations and citations omitted); Aschenbrenner v. Conseil Reg’l de Haute-Normandie, 851 F. Supp. 580, 584-85 (S.D.N.Y. 1994).  Nevertheless, as noted above, such decisions have generally not fared well – the Ninth Circuit abrogated Intercontinental Dictionary Series in Sun, and the Aschenbrenner court’s conclusion is questionable under recent Second Circuit precedent.  See NML Capital, Ltd., 680 F.3d at 259.  Moreover, a number of courts have rejected the proposition that an activity that would customarily not be undertaken by a private person for profit should be deemed noncommercial under section 1605(a)(2).  See, e.g., Siderman de Blake v. Republic of Argentina, 965 F.2d 699, 708-09 (9th Cir. 1992) (“Though activities that customarily are carried on for profit are certainly commercial, an activity need not be motivated by profit to be commercial”); Berdakin v. Consulado de la Republica de El Salvador, 912 F. Supp. 458, 462 (C.D. Cal. 1995) (“A transaction or act is commercial if it is of the type an individual would customarily carry on for profit, but although the presence of a profit motive may be sufficient to render activity commercial, it is not necessary.”) (quotations and citations omitted).  As stated by the Eleventh Circuit in Guevara:

[S]aying that all for-profit activities are commercial is not the same thing as saying that all commercial activities are for profit.  The premise that all A is B does not logically compel the conclusion that all B is A, unless A and B are the same thing. There is no reason in the FSIA to believe that commercial activity means the same thing, and no more than, for-profit activity.

 . . . .

In fact, when private individuals purchase goods and services, they rarely do so with the intent to profit from their purchase. (Think of consumers at grocery stores and gas stations.) Peru’s [proposed] test would exclude most cases in which the government acts as a purchaser, rather than a vendor, of goods and services because most purchases made by private persons are not made with the intent to resell for profit.  Nothing in the restrictive theory of sovereign immunity turns on whether the government is a buyer or a seller.

Guevara v. Republic of Peru, 468 F.3d 1289, 1303 (11th Cir. 2006).

Based upon such reasoning, courts have declined to use an objective profit test to determine that a particular activity is not commercial.

The Unprofitable “Profit” Test.  Although the case law in this area is generally deemed confusing and inconsistent, the foregoing precedent in fact suggests relatively clear guidelines with respect to a “profit” inquiry under section 1605(a)(2).  Any attempt to examine profit to determine the commercial nature of an activity should acknowledge the following limitations:

1.         The foreign sovereign’s subjective profit motive is off limits, and will continue to be unless and until Congress amends section 1603(d).

2.         The FSIA does not define commercial activity in terms of profit, instead requiring an examination of the “nature” of the conduct in question.  28 U.S.C. § 1603(d).  In light of section 1603(d), the Supreme Court has specifically held that “the issue is whether the particular actions that the foreign state performs (whatever the motive behind them) are the type of actions by which a private party engages in trade and traffic or commerce.”  Weltover, 504 U.S. at 614.  In addition, the rationale of the Cicippio decision demonstrates that there are limits to an objective profit inquiry.  As a result, any determination of whether an activity is commercial cannot turn solely on an objective profit inquiry.  Courts cannot, in other words, replace the statutory inquiry with a strict objective “profit” test.  At best, under section 1603(d) and Weltover, the objective profit inquiry can be a factor in determining that an activity is commercial in nature.

3.        The fact that an activity is customarily not undertaken for profit should be considered as a factor in determining that the activity is noncommercial.  Such an inquiry is not foreclosed by the Guevara court’s reasoning; the problems identified by the Eleventh Circuit and other courts only appear under a strict objective “no profit = noncommercial” test.  If courts can consider a profit motive from the perspective of an objective private person to determine that conduct is commercial, they should be able to consider the objective lack of a profit motive as a factor in determining that activity is noncommercial as well.

In the final analysis, much of the confusion relating to profit inquiries under section 1605(a)(2) stems from loose language in court opinions and in the legislative history.  If courts make clear that they are undertaking an objective inquiry that considers profit motive solely as a factor, a profit inquiry could become a useful tool in commercial activity jurisprudence.