WASHINGTON.– The United States Supreme Court announced on Friday, October 3, that it will agree to review two historic cases related to properties confiscated in Cuba after Fidel Castro came to power, in a dispute that could open the door to multimillion-dollar claims against the island’s communist regime.
One of the cases was presented by the oil company Exxon Mobil Corporationwhich is demanding compensation for the expropriation of its refinery, terminals and more than a hundred service stations confiscated in the late 1950s. The second involves the American company Havana Docks Corporationwhich claims that the world’s main cruise lines illegally used docks that it built in 1905 and that were nationalized by the Cuban regime after the revolution.
In 1969, a United States commission certified the losses of Standard Oil (today Exxon Mobil) at about $72 million, but with accrued interest and the possibility of triple compensation, the figure could rise to billions. According to Exxon, nearly 6,000 American individuals and companies have certified claims for more than $1.9 billion, not including interest.
“The Cuban government never paid any compensation for the confiscated properties. Exxon has been waiting since the early 1960s to receive justice,” argued the company’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wallin his appeal.
The case of Havana Docks
For its part, the Havana Docks company alleges that, between 2015 and 2019, cruise lines disembarked almost a million tourists at confiscated docks, paying the Cuban regime at least $130 million, without compensating the original owner company.
The shipping companies, in turn, maintain that the original contract with the Cuban regime had expired in 2004, before they began operations in Havana in 2016. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in their favor, but the company appealed to the Supreme Court.
The litigation is made possible by the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which authorized U.S. citizens to sue for assets confiscated in Cuba. For more than two decades, presidents suspended the application of that provision, citing “national interests.”
However, in 2019, during the first presidency of Republican Donald Trump, the suspension was lifted, reactivating the lawsuits. Exxon filed its appeal that same day.
International implications
The Supreme Court will have to decide whether these actions meet the exceptions that allow foreign governments to be sued in US courts, despite the sovereign immunity that generally protects them.
The US Department of Justice supported the review of the case, stating that the country has “a compelling interest in ensuring that US citizens whose property was illegally expropriated by the Cuban regime receive compensation.”
However, Corporación Cimex, one of the Cuban state entities that benefited from the confiscations, warned that the ruling could have “global implications” and open the door to judicial retaliation against the United States abroad.
The Supreme Court’s final decision could redefine foreign policy toward Cuba and establish a key precedent in how U.S. courts address claims against authoritarian regimes.
