The U.S. Supreme Court handed ExxonMobil a significant legal victory on Tuesday, ruling that Cuba’s state-owned businesses cannot hide behind a legal shield known as foreign sovereign immunity when facing lawsuits filed under a 1996 federal law.
The 6-3 decision makes it substantially easier for American companies to pursue compensation from Cuba’s government for property that was seized long ago under former Cuban leader Fidel Castro. The court’s six conservative justices sided with Exxon, while the three liberal justices disagreed with the outcome.
The ruling centered on Exxon’s 2019 lawsuit against Corporación CIMEX, a Cuban government-owned conglomerate. Exxon accused CIMEX of continuing to operate a refinery and service stations that originally belonged to Standard Oil, the company that eventually became ExxonMobil. Castro’s government confiscated those assets in 1959, a loss Exxon valued at $70 million at the time. With interest and the possibility of enhanced damages, that claim has grown to more than $1 billion today.
Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the majority opinion, writing that the law at the center of the case — the Helms-Burton Act — “abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities.”
Kavanaugh added that the Helms-Burton Act “authorizes private suits against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities — suits that would largely be nonstarters if subjected to the FSIA’s requirements,” referring to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976.
The high court overturned a lower court’s 2024 ruling that had allowed CIMEX to use the sovereign immunity defense. The case now goes back to a lower court to weigh CIMEX’s potential financial liability.
The Helms-Burton Act includes a provision known as Title III, which allows lawsuits in U.S. courts against anyone who “traffics” in property taken by Cuba’s communist government following the 1959 revolution. The Trump administration backed Exxon’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
The ruling arrives during a period of sharp tensions between the United States and Cuba. On May 20, the U.S. filed murder charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, marking a major escalation in the Trump administration’s pressure on Cuba’s government. The U.S. has also effectively imposed a blockade on Cuba by threatening sanctions against nations that supply it with fuel, contributing to widespread power outages and deepening what is described as Cuba’s worst crisis in decades.
According to Exxon, its confiscated assets were transferred to CIMEX, which Cuba’s government describes as its largest state-owned conglomerate. Exxon says CIMEX continues to hold and profit from that property today.
Exxon’s lawsuit was among roughly 40 cases filed under the Helms-Burton Act in 2019 and 2020, following a shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba during President Trump’s first term. The Title III provision had previously been suspended by three different presidents who wanted to avoid diplomatic friction with allies such as Canada and Spain, whose companies have business interests in Cuba. Trump lifted that suspension in 2019.
Lower courts had previously made it difficult for American companies to win such cases, with most lawsuits thrown out on jurisdictional or procedural grounds.
Tuesday’s ruling was one of two Supreme Court decisions this year involving the Helms-Burton Act. In the other case, decided on May 21, the court dealt a setback to four American cruise companies — Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Cruises, and MSC Cruises — which had been hit with a combined $440 million in judgments. Those judgments were awarded to a company called Havana Docks Corporation, which accused the cruise lines of unlawfully using Cuban docks it had built before they were seized by the Cuban government. The Supreme Court set aside a lower court ruling that had thrown out those judgments and sent the case back for further review.
