A recent Supreme Court decision sets important precedent on the retroactive effect of legislation amending the law governing sovereign immunity in the United States. On May 18, 2020, the Supreme Court handed a victory to...more
In the last 30 years, the U.S. Congress has enacted several laws enabling victims of terrorism to seek damages in U.S. federal courts. The central piece of legislation in this regard, the Antiterrorism Act of 1990 (ATA), has...more
The Supreme Court in Opati v. Republic of Sudan, No. 17–1268, 590 U.S. ___ (2020), has held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act ("FSIA") allows certain plaintiffs to recover punitive damages from state sponsors of...more
On May 18, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Opati v. Republic of Sudan, holding that plaintiffs who sue a foreign government under the state-sponsored-terrorism exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act can seek...more
Opati v. Republic of Sudan, No. 17-1268: Victims of a 1998 al Qaeda attack outside the United States Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania brought suit in federal court against the Republic of Sudan, alleging that Sudan had...more
On June 19, 2107 the U.S. Supreme Court decided Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, holding that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act allows some but not all of the property of a state sponsor of terrorism to be attached to...more
Last summer, we wrote about a unique situation that arose in the case of Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, No. 14-1935 (7th Cir. July 19, 2016), in which the Seventh Circuit found itself unable to assemble a “majority” of...more