Supreme Court says cruise lines can be sued over seized Cuba docks – JURIST

The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that four cruise lines can be sued for using docks in the Port of Havana that Cuba’s communist government seized from an American company in 1960, reviving a case that could leave the companies owing hundreds of millions of dollars.

The 8-1 decision sided with Havana Docks Corp., which built and once operated the docks under a time-limited concession granted by the Cuban government. After Fidel Castro took power, his government confiscated the docks without paying compensation. Between 2016 and 2019, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival Corp. and MSC Cruises carried nearly a million paying passengers to Cuba, using the same docks to load and unload travelers.

Havana Docks sued under the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, known as the Helms-Burton Act, which lets US nationals sue anyone who “traffics” in property confiscated by Cuba. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all suspended that right to sue. President Donald Trump let the suspension lapse in May 2019.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said the company had only to show the cruise lines used confiscated property — the docks themselves — not that they trafficked in Havana Docks’ expired ownership interest. Confiscated property is “tainted,” Thomas wrote, “such that anyone who uses the property can be liable to those who had an interest” in it.

A federal appeals court had thrown out the case, reasoning that the company’s concession would have expired in 2004 anyway, well before the cruises began. The Supreme Court vacated that ruling and sent the case back for further proceedings.

In dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the docks always belonged to Cuba, not Havana Docks, which she likened to “a renter with a lease” set to expire in 2004. The cruise lines, she wrote, “did not traffic in Havana Docks’ time-limited — and long-ago expired — concession.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, agreed with the outcome but warned the company’s reading could let it recover millions “over and over again” from anyone using the docks. She also questioned whether the cruises fell under an exception covering lawful travel to Cuba.