The question
Whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act requires a plaintiff to prove "minimum contacts" over and above the contacts required by the Act's enumerated immunity exceptions before a federal court may exercise personal jurisdiction over a foreign state.
CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix Corp.
What the Court decided
The Court reversed the Ninth Circuit and held that a federal court has personal jurisdiction over a foreign state under the FSIA whenever an enumerated immunity exception applies and service of process is proper. No separate showing of "minimum contacts" is required. The statute declares that personal jurisdiction "shall exist" when those two conditions are met, and the provision makes no reference to minimum contacts. The Court declined to add a requirement Congress left out of the Act's comprehensive scheme.
How the justices split
UnanimousThe Court's opinion
Alito, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Jackson
The FSIA's personal-jurisdiction provision imposes two requirements: subject-matter jurisdiction, which the Act grants whenever an enumerated immunity exception applies, and service under the Act's specialized rules. When both are satisfied, the statute declares that personal jurisdiction shall exist. The provision makes no reference to minimum contacts, and the Court declined to add what Congress left out. To the extent the immunity exceptions require suit-related domestic contact, that is because the exceptions Congress wrote happen to meet the due-process standard, not because the jurisdiction provision incorporated the Court's due-process cases. Reading a minimum-contacts requirement into only one of the Act's tethered immunity and jurisdictional provisions would weaken the link Congress forged and create a gap in its comprehensive framework.
How we know · 5 sourced claims
The Court held that personal jurisdiction exists under the FSIA when an immunity exception applies and service is proper.
Source: syllabus, Held
The FSIA does not require proof of minimum contacts over and above the contacts already required by the Act's enumerated immunity exceptions.
Source: syllabus, Held
Alito delivered the opinion for a unanimous Court.
Source: syllabus, lineup
The Ninth Circuit had reversed the District Court's confirmation of the arbitral award, finding that personal jurisdiction was lacking.
Source: syllabus, Held
The FSIA's personal-jurisdiction provision imposes two requirements: subject-matter jurisdiction through an enumerated immunity exception, and service under the Act's specialized service-of-process rules.
Source: syllabus, Held