Civil Procedure — sovereign immunity

Listen to this article

U.S. Supreme Court

Civil

Civil Procedure — sovereign immunity

The FSIA does not immunize a foreign-sovereign judgment debtor from postjudgment discovery of information concerning its extraterritorial assets.

The FSIA replaced an executive-driven, factor-intensive, loosely common-law-based immunity regime with “a comprehensive framework for resolving any claim of sovereign immunity.” Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U. S. 677, 699. Henceforth, any sort of immunity defense made by a foreign sovereign in an American court must stand or fall on the Act’s text. The Act confers on foreign states two kinds of immunity. The first, jurisdictional immunity (28 U. S. C. §1604), was waived here. The second, execution immunity, generally shields “property in the United States of a foreign state” from attachment, arrest, and execution. §§1609, 1610. See also §1611(a), (b)(1), (b)(2). The Act has no third provision forbidding or limiting discovery in aid of execution of a foreign-sovereign judgment debtor’s assets. Far from containing the “plain statement” necessary to preclude application of federal discovery rules, Société Nationale Industrielle Aérospatiale v. United States Dist. Court for Southern Dist. of Iowa, 482 U. S. 522, 539, the Act says not a word about postjudgment discovery in aid of execution.

695 F. 3d 201, affirmed.

12-842 Republic of Argentina v. NML Capital, Ltd.

Scalia, J.; Ginsburg, J., dissenting.