Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Corporación CIMEX (24-699)
- Term
- OT 2025
- Argued
- 2026-02-23
- Decided
- 2026-06-23
- Vote
- 6-3 for Exxon Mobil
- Opinion
- Justice Kavanaugh
- Majority
- Kavanaugh, Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, Barrett
- Dissent
- Kagan, Sotomayor, Jackson
Holding
Reversed the D. C. Circuit, 6-3 for Exxon. Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the Court, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett; Kagan dissented, joined by Sotomayor and Jackson. Held: the Helms-Burton Act ITSELF abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities, so a Helms-Burton plaintiff need not also satisfy a separate FSIA exception. Four points, taken together: (1) under the Court's precedents (most recently Kirtz, 2024), a statute that creates a cause of action and expressly applies it against a sovereign waives immunity even without a separate waiver provision, and Section 6082(a)(1)(A)/Section 6023(11) expressly run the Helms-Burton cause of action against Cuban 'agenc[ies] or instrumentalit[ies]'; (2) Congress does not enact self-defeating statutes, and reading the Act to require an FSIA exception would gut it because the Act's own embargo bars the commercial activity the relevant FSIA exceptions demand; (3) the Act routes suits to Section 1331 federal-question jurisdiction, NOT the FSIA's Section 1330, signaling these are not FSIA actions; and (4) the Act gives the President plenary power to suspend suits, mirroring the pre-1976 executive-controlled immunity regime, which Congress would not have recreated while also subjecting suits to the FSIA. The Court emphasized Congress need not use 'magic words' to abrogate (Kirtz); a 'clearly discernable' waiver from the 'sum total' of the Act's work suffices.
Pre-decision prediction
Exxon 6-3 (55% confidence).
Opinion of the Court
Authored by Justice Kavanaugh (10,532 words total).
EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. CORPORACIÓN CIMEX, S. A. (CUBA), ET AL. CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT No. 24–699.
Argued February 23, 2026—Decided June 23, 2026
In 1960, after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, the Cuban Government confiscated many foreign-owned assets, including Exxon’s oil refinery, terminals, packaging plants, and more than a hundred service stations. Since then, two Cuban government-owned companies—Unión Cuba-Petróleo (CUPET) and Corporación CIMEX, S. A. (Cuba) (CIMEX)—have operated and profited from Exxon’s expropriated assets. Exxon had no good way to sue the Cuban government entities and seek compensation for its confiscated property until Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Helms-Burton Act in 1996. As relevant here, the Act created a private right of action for U. S. nationals whose property was confiscated by the Cuban Government against “any person that . . . traffics in” the confiscated property, 22 U. S. C. §6082(a)(1)(A), with “person” defined to include “any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state,” §6023(11). Exxon sued CUPET, CIMEX, and later CIMEX’s Panamanian alter ego under the HelmsBurton Act in the U. S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking more than $1 billion in damages. The Cuban governmentowned companies moved to dismiss, asserting immunity under the generally applicable Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). Exxon countered that the Helms-Burton Act itself waived the defendants’ sovereign immunity. The District Court sided with the Cuban government defendants, and a divided panel of the U. S. Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit affirmed. 111 F. 4th 12, 23. Held: The Helms-Burton Act itself abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities; plaintiffs who sue Cuban agencies or instrumentalities under the Act need not also satisfy one of
EXXON MOBIL CORP. v. CORPORACIÓN CIMEX, S. A. (CUBA) Syllabus FSIA’s enumerated exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity. A congressional waiver of sovereign immunity must be “clearly discernible from the sum total” of Congress’s “work,” Department of Agriculture Rural Development Rural Housing Service v. Kirtz, 601 U. S. 42, 55. Four points, taken together, lead to the conclusion that the Helms-Burton Act clearly abrogated the foreign sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities. Pp. 5–22. (a) First, under this Court’s precedents, a statute creating a cause of action that explicitly applies against a sovereign waives the immunity of that sovereign “even without a separate waiver provision,” id., at 53. The Helms-Burton Act’s cause of action expressly applies against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities: Section 6082(a)(1)(A) confers a private right of action for any U. S. national whose “property” was “confiscated by the Cuban Government,” running against “any person that . . . traffics in” the confiscated property, and Section 6023(11) defines “person” to include “any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state.” This Court’s general sovereign immunity precedents—most recently Kirtz—hold that when Congress creates a cause of action and expressly applies it against government agencies or instrumentalities, Congress has abrogated sovereign immunity, see id., at 49–50. Pp. 8– 11. (b) Second, Congress does not ordinarily enact self-defeating statutes, see Quarles v. United States, 587 U. S. 645, 654, or “authorize a suit against a sovereign with one hand, only to bar it with the other,” Financial Oversight and Management Bd. for P. R. v. Centro De Periodismo Investigativo, Inc., 598 U. S. 339, 348. The Cuban government defendants’ interpretation would largely negate the Helms-Burton Act’s cause of action because the potentially relevant FSIA exceptions—the expropriation exception, 28 U. S. C. §1605(a)(3), and the commercial-activity exception, §1605(a)(2)—would require a plaintiff to demonstrate that the Cuban instrumentalities engaged in commercial activity in the United States or committed acts with direct effects in the United States. But a plaintiff suing under the Helms-Burton Act could almost never meet those exceptions because the Act simultaneously codified a comprehensive economic embargo against Cuba and barred most commercial interactions between Americans and Cubans. See 22 U. S. C. §6032(h); see, e.g., 31 CFR §§515.201(b), 515.204. Pp. 11–13. (c) Third, the Helms-Burton Act provides that suits under the Act fall within the general federal-question jurisdiction of 28 U. S. C. §1331, not under the FSIA’s §1330. Title 22 U. S. C. §6082(c)(1) states that Title 28’s provisions apply to suits under the Act “to the same extent as . . . any other action brought under section 1331 of title 28.” (Emphasis added.) By making suits under the Helms-Burton Act
Syllabus subject to §1331 rather than §1330, Congress made clear that actions under the Act are not actions under the FSIA. Pp. 13–15. (d) Fourth, the Helms-Burton Act grants the President plenary power to suspend suits under the Act based on current national security and foreign policy assessments, operating similarly to how foreign sovereign immunity operated before the 1976 enactment of the FSIA. Under both the Act and the pre-FSIA immunity regime, immunity decisions were the province of the Executive Branch. It is not plausible to conclude that Congress chose to reinstate the pre-FSIA immunity regime in the Helms-Burton Act while simultaneously subjecting suits under the Act to the FSIA. Pp. 15–18. (e) The Cuban government defendants’ counterarguments fail. The implied-repeal canon does not apply because the Helms-Burton Act contains many express indications that the Act is a standalone statutory exception to foreign sovereign immunity. And contrary to the Cuban government defendants’ arguments, Congress does not need to use “magic words” to abrogate sovereign immunity, Kirtz, 601 U. S., at 48; Congress must simply make a waiver “clearly discernable” from the “sum total” of its work, id., at 55 (quotation marks omitted), which the Helms-Burton Act did through its many provisions indicating that Cuban agencies and instrumentalities could and would be sued. That an earlier draft of the Helms-Burton Act expressly waived sovereign immunity while the final version did not is simply another magic-words requirement. Pp. 18–21. 111 F. 4th 12, reversed and remanded. KAVANAUGH, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and THOMAS, ALITO, GORSUCH, and BARRETT, JJ., joined. KAGAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which SOTOMAYOR and JACKSON, JJ., joined.
Opinion of the Court NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
EXXON MOBIL CORPORATION, PETITIONER v. CORPORACIÓN CIMEX, S. A. (CUBA), ET AL. ON WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT [June 23, 2026]
JUSTICE KAVANAUGH delivered the opinion of the Court. In 1960, a year after assuming power in Cuba, Fidel Castro declared that the new Communist government would seize all “Yankee property” in Cuba. Castro made good on that promise. The Cuban Government confiscated a variety of American businesses then operating in Cuba, including Exxon’s oil refinery and service stations. Cuba transferred Exxon’s property to Cuban government-owned companies. In 1996, to afford victims of “Castro’s wrongful seizures” a “judicial remedy in the courts of the United States,” Congress passed and President Clinton signed the HelmsBurton Act, formally known as the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act. §301, 110 Stat. 815, 22 U. S. C. §6081. That Act created a private right of action for U. S. nationals whose property was unlawfully confiscated: They may sue Cuban agencies and instrumentalities that possess, use, or otherwise traffic in the confiscated property. Foreign sovereigns, including their agencies and instrumentalities, are presumptively immune from suit in U. S. courts. The question here is whether the Helms-
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