Authored by Matthew Vadum via The Epoch Times,
The U.S. Supreme Court is poised to hear two cases on Feb. 23 about U.S. business assets that Cuba’s communist government seized decades ago.
Both cases focus on the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic SolidarityAct that was created to pressure Cuba by penalizing foreign companies “trafficking” in property that the Cuban regime seized from U.S. interests.
Also known as the Helms-Burton Act, the law allows U.S. citizens and companies to sue any person who traffics in or uses confiscated property. Trafficking in the statute includes using or profiting from the confiscated property.
The law defines “person” to include “any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state,” and contemplates civil judgments being obtained against “an agency or instrumentality of the Cuban Government.”
Cuba’s late dictator Fidel Castro overthrew the then-government in 1959 and turned Cuba into a one-party state in which socialist policies were implemented, including the nationalization of the assets of foreign businesses operating in Cuba at the time.
In Exxon Mobil v. Corporacion Cimex, Exxon Mobilseekscompensation from three Cuban government-owned companies for energy assets seized in 1960 after the communists took power.The company was previously known an Standard Oil Co.
Until recently, parties like Exxon were unable to pursue claims against Cuban government-owned enterprises under the Helms-Burton Act because President Bill Clinton suspended Title III—the part of the law allowing compensation lawsuits to be filed.
In his first term, President Donald Trump revoked the suspension on May 2, 2019, and Exxon Mobil filed its lawsuit the same day.
The legal issue in the case is whether the Helms-Burton Act “abrogates foreign sovereign immunity” in cases against Cuban entities, the company said in itspetition.
Source: ZeroHedge News
