Jpmorgan Chase Bank v. Traffic Stream (Bvi) Infrastructure Limited (536 U.S. 88)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 10, 2002 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 536 U.S. 88 · 122 S. Ct. 2054
- Decided
- June 10, 2002
- Term
- October Term 2001
- Vote
- 9–0
- Majority author
- Justice Souter
- Issue area
- Judicial Power
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
Opinion excerpt
Justice Souter delivered the opinion of the Court. The question here is whether a corporation organized under the laws of the British Virgin Islands is a “citize[n] or subjec[t] of a foreign state” for the purposes of alienage diversity jurisdiction, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(2). We hold that it is. I Respondent Traffic Stream (BVI) Infrastructure Ltd. is a corporation organized under the laws of the British Virgin Islands (BVI), an Overseas Territory of the United Kingdom. In 1998, petitioner Chase Manhattan Bank, now JPMorgan Chase Bank, agreed to finance some ventures Traffic Stream had organized to construct and operate toll roads in China, with the parties’ contract to “be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York,” App. 85a. Traffic Stream agreed to “submi[t] to the jurisdiction” of federal courts in Manhattan, and to “waiv[e] any immunity from [their] jurisdiction.” Ibid. Chase subsequently charged Traffic Stream with defaulting on its obligations. It sued in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, which found subject-matter jurisdiction under the alienage diversity statute, 28 U. S. C. § 1332(a)(2), and granted summary judgment to Chase. When Traffic Stream appealed, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sua sponte raised the question whether Traffic Stream was a citizen or subject of…
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