Carnival, MSC, Royal Caribbean, and Norwegian operated cruises to Havana, Cuba from 2016-19, after President Obama announced loosening of restrictions on visiting the long-sanctioned country.
Those cruise lines used docks in the capital that had been operated by the U.S. company Havana Docks under a 99-year lease, before Cuba confiscated the docks more than six decades ago, by Fidel Castro’s regime in the Cuban Revolution.
As a result, Havana Docks sued the cruise lines, claiming that they violated the Helms-Burton Act of 1996, which allows for damages against people or companies who “traffic in” property that had been seized. Havana Docks eventually won a $440 million judgement by a Miami Federal District Court in Miami; a U.S. Court of Appeals later reversed the decision, and the case made its way up to the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court rules 8-1 to allow the suit to be reopened.
“The Act generally makes those who use property tainted by a past confiscation liable to any United States national who owns a claim to that property,” wrote Justice Clarence Thomas for the majority.
The sole dissenting Justice was Justice Elena Kagan.
“What Havana Docks owned was only a property interest allowing it to use those docks for a specified time. And that time-limited interest expired in 2004—more than a decade before the cruise lines ever used the docks,” wrote Kagan.
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