CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix Corp.
The Supreme Court unanimously ruled that U.S. courts do not need to conduct a separate minimum-contacts inquiry before exercising jurisdiction over foreign government-owned companies — when the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act's two conditions are met, jurisdiction is automatic.
The decision resolves a long-standing circuit split and makes it easier for parties who hold arbitration awards or other judgments against foreign state-owned entities to enforce them in U.S. courts.
How it got here: A federal district court confirmed a $1.29 billion arbitration award against Antrix; the Ninth Circuit reversed for lack of personal jurisdiction; the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and reversed.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Devas Multimedia, a private Indian company, signed a contract with Antrix Corporation — a satellite agency owned by the Indian government — under which Antrix would build and launch satellites and lease capacity to Devas for multimedia broadcasting across India. In 2011, the Indian government decided it needed the satellite capacity for itself and directed Antrix to cancel the contract. An international arbitration panel unanimously found Antrix had wrongfully terminated the deal and awarded Devas $562.5 million in damages, a sum that grew to a $1.29 billion court judgment after confirmation in the United States.
The question before the Court
Does a U.S. court need to find that a foreign government-owned company had sufficient independent ties to the United States before it can hear a lawsuit against that company, on top of what the law governing foreign sovereign immunity already requires?
The Court's answer
No — under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, a U.S. court automatically has personal jurisdiction over a foreign government-owned company when two conditions are satisfied: an exception to the company's immunity applies, and the company has been properly served under the Act's rules. The statute's text says jurisdiction "shall exist" when those two criteria are met, with no mention of any additional minimum-contacts showing. The Ninth Circuit had grafted on that third requirement based on its own prior rulings, but the Supreme Court found nothing in the statute supports it.
The Court did not, however, resolve this lawsuit entirely. Three other arguments for dismissal — whether the U.S. Constitution's Due Process Clause independently demands minimum contacts even when the FSIA is satisfied, whether the specific claims here fall within the FSIA's arbitration exception, and whether the case should be sent to a different country's courts — were never addressed by the Ninth Circuit and are left for that court to work through on remand.
Curious how the Court got there? See the step-by-step legal reasoning →
Why it matters
Companies and investors who win arbitration awards against foreign government-owned entities — a common occurrence in international trade and infrastructure contracts — will find it easier to get those awards confirmed in U.S. courts. They no longer need to clear the extra hurdle of showing the foreign entity had sufficient business ties to the United States beyond what the immunity-exception rules already demand.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the Ninth Circuit, which must now address the three arguments it never reached: whether the Constitution's Due Process Clause independently requires a minimum-contacts showing for foreign sovereign defendants, whether the FSIA's arbitration exception actually covers this specific dispute, and whether the lawsuit should be dismissed in favor of litigation abroad. Any of those arguments, if accepted, could still result in dismissal — so the $1.29 billion judgment is not yet final.
What this does not decide
The Court expressly did not decide whether the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause independently requires minimum contacts before a U.S. court can sue a foreign government-owned company, whether the FSIA's arbitration exception covers the specific claims in this dispute, or whether the case should be dismissed under the doctrine of forum non conveniens.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court started with the text of the FSIA's personal-jurisdiction provision, 28 U.S.C. §1330(b), which says personal jurisdiction over a foreign state 'shall exist' whenever (1) an immunity exception applies — giving the district court subject-matter jurisdiction — and (2) the foreign defendant has been properly served under the FSIA's specialized rules. The word 'shall' makes jurisdiction mandatory, leaving no room for judicial add-ons.
- Because §1330(b) contains no mention of 'minimum contacts' — the constitutional due-process test developed in International Shoe v. Washington for ordinary domestic defendants — the Court declined to read that requirement into the statute. The FSIA was designed to 'clarify the governing standards,' and adding an unwritten requirement would contradict that purpose.
- The Court acknowledged that the FSIA's immunity exceptions themselves already demand varying degrees of U.S. connection before a case can proceed — for example, commercial activity in the United States or a direct effect here. So there is a built-in contacts requirement, but it flows from the exceptions, not from a silent incorporation of the International Shoe test into §1330(b).
- The FSIA's overall structure reinforced this reading: immunity and jurisdiction are deliberately linked so that when an exception strips a foreign state's immunity, §1330 grants jurisdiction automatically. Reading an extra minimum-contacts requirement into only the jurisdictional half of that tethered pair would break the link Congress deliberately forged and create a gap in what the Court has described as a 'comprehensive framework.'
- The Ninth Circuit's two contrary arguments — that one exception's 'direct effect' language mirrors the minimum-contacts test, and that legislative history confirms the FSIA silently incorporates it — both failed. The House Report the Ninth Circuit relied on actually shows Congress believed the immunity exceptions' existing contact requirements satisfy due process on their own, not that §1330(b) adds a separate constitutional floor.
- Three alternative grounds Antrix raised to keep the case dismissed — that the Fifth Amendment independently requires minimum contacts for foreign sovereigns, that the arbitration exception doesn't cover these specific claims, and that the case belongs in a different country's courts — were never addressed by the Ninth Circuit, so the Court left all three for the lower court to decide on remand.