we'll hear argument next in case fifteen one thirty eight r j our nabisco vs the european community surpasses mr chief justice and may please the court the second circuit extended civil rico claims involving foreign injuries foreign enterprises and foreign patterns of racketeering its holding is wrong for two reasons first rico's private civil cause of action does not provide redress for foreign injuries and second ricos substantive prohibitions do not reach the infiltration and corruption of foreign enterprises as to the first point respondents have now abandoned any allegation of domestic injury that is fatal to their case because section one nine hundred sixty four c e the private right of action in rico is limited to presumption against extraterritoriality injury is the focus of section nine hundred sixty four c and therefore injury is limited to domestic application absen clear indication to the contrary that is a straightforward application of this court's decision in morrison which says you identify the focus of the provision before you and you limit it to domestic application unless different provisions in statutes can have different foci as morrison itself made clear in separately analyzing section thirty eight and section ten b of the thirty four securities act and here the difference between the substantive prohibition and the private right of action is clear from this court's private right of action jurisprudence over the last thirty or forty years which make clear that the decision to prohibit certain underlying conduct is fundamentally different from the decision to provide a private right of action for violation of substantive law that's why section nine hundred sixty four  c has a different focus you don't automatically assume that because congress criminalize the conduct it intended for the private right of action to fall along to the same extent mr cutts is can i ask a question that this is an analytical question not necessarily at all an argument that your result is wrong but because i'm confused by what you said now and what you say in the briefs that this is a matter of looking to the focus of the statute because my understanding of morrison is that this whole focus inquiry came in at the second step of the analysis another was once the court had decided that the presumption against extraterritoriality had not been rebutted then there was an additional argument that had been made like oh well this really does involve domestic conduct and so the court used this focus test to decide whether it was the domestic conduct or the extraterritorial conduct that was the focus of the statute but that doesn't seem to answer the question whether the presumption is rebutted at all and it doesn't seem to answer the question that i think you were trying to get at and it's an important question as to whether we look at that presumption question  section by section or for the statute as a whole i think the rule that emerges from morson is that what what has to be domestic is the statutory focus more mor section ten b and there were two choices there's the element of deception and there's the alamo of the securities transaction and its foreign transaction domestic deception and the court says no no clear indication congress can obviously provide for or prohibit extra character tauriel application if they do that clearly if they don't do that clearly and and the presumption is going to operate you have to figure out whether the focus of the statute is one element or the other and they said the focus is the transaction and and therefore that is what has to be domestic and because the transaction in morson was foreign the application of the statute was impermissibly mistake and i guess i just would have thought that the question is whether these are discrete provisions in some way such that a conclusion as to the extra tor extraterritoriality of one doesn't really affect doesn't tell you anything about the extraterritoriality of the other and it seems much less important as to what the focus of the statute as a whole is even you know if one could  could answer that question there will always be a question if you have related provisions there will always be a question of whether the focus of one element in a statute carries over to the other this found in the united states no but i can understand why they'd make that a crime so why would they put it in rico unless they wanted some purdy who was hurt to be able to get damages well the person the person who was hurt as to the injury the injuries somebody to foreign airport the person a person who suffers injury from violation of that act can't recover under rico rico is limited to recovery for business or property business is hurt i mean you know they blew up an airport in in tasmania ok so so i guess that blowing up an airport there could hurt somebody they come but my question is what's it doing in a rico if in fact  congress doesn't intend a foreign person hurt to be able to get damages it's already a crime and maybe this is a wrong example think of they have a list of about fifty right ok so some of them i can ask this question to what's it doing in rico unless they want somebody to get damages there are something on the order of two hundred predicate statutes that are in rico and the solicitor general's appendix that cites about forty six of them which have extraterritorial application all but seven of those statutes in have domestic as well as extraterritorial application including the one  just read when you look at the government's appendix what many of those statutes do is they take a statute satch it has domestic application and then there's a provision that extends that extra territorially and what's quoted in the government's brief is the extension for extra territorial application so i think what your question goes to is well what about the want what about statutes that are exclusively extraterritorial there are seven only with only one of them out of the two hundred rico predicates was specifically mentioned in rico as one statute that it should apply ok so your point is really if there is one word three words your answer to my question is forwards it was an accident that since i know i'm not saying it was an accident then and then if it was not an accident i mean explain to me the same question i don't want to repeat the same question five times all all all but the vast majority of some let's look at the ones that were not that of the seven or if you want the three why would a human being now you've got my question why is it in rico if they don't want  let's let's talk about the one that i mentioned it's eighteen u s c twenty two sixty that provision addresses child pornography child pornography offenses abroad with intent to import into the united states that provision has perfectly meaningful application for people who suffer people who suffer domestic injuries and for united states enterprises united states racketeers who could use domestic enterprises to violate that provision and even if i were wrong about that justice prior i don't think you would use the one provision out of two hundred as the basis for saying that it's the statute that on it in the heartland of its application will do lots and lots and lots of meaningful work when it's applied to domestic injuries the related point six isn't just the presumption against extraterritoriality we also have the background common law rule that causes of action to redress  private injuries are governed by the law of the place of the injury here we have only foreign injuries congress legislates against the background common law  rule and just as the cause of action rico picks up background common law rules a proximate cause so to it picks up this lex loci delectably rule again absent some clear indication to the contrary when you look for a clear indication with respect to the question of injury not only don't you find a clear indication to the contrary you find in the statutory findings in rico a repeated and specific and exclusive focus on the domestic effects of racketeering as congress has identified its concern it is it is impact on the american economy from certainly no clear indication to extend the cause of action to foreign harms well that may have been true or norge me true at the beginning but how about all these amendments that happened after nine eleven which clearly seem focused on foreign conduct foreign organization foreign harm there's there is one amendment that is cited it's the patriot act which does want one thing to rico  expands the list the predicate statutes to include one provisions twenty two thirty twenty three thirty two she the five it's a reference to that statute when you go to that statute it's a list the list has sixty or so terrorism related predicate crimes fifty eight of those crowds have domestic applications possibly  some domestic application but if you ask but why did congress pass this amendment at this particular moment in time what was i mean recognizing that it's sometimes hard to figure out what was in people's heads i mean don't you think that what was in congress's heads at that moment in time was foreign terrorist organizations committing terrorist conduct on foreign soil we we don't know for sure i'll give you another possibility which is what they had in mind was the september eleventh attacks which were domestic acts of racketeering when they incorporated that list that i mentioned the very first statute on that list is predicates relative to the events of september eleventh but in any event with respect i don't think that's the right question because where the presumption applies either or either on the question of injury which i've been discussing or on the question of enterprise versus pattern again the rule for morrison is that you identify the focus and then you need a clear indication in the statute to the contrary you deal with a judge when underlying acts would be criminally prosecuted and could be punished very severely rico if i understand the hypothetical the organisation is foreign in our cover that here's here's why either civilly or criminally are correct because now if i'm turning to section one thousand nine hundred sixty two our position is that the focus is on the enterprise and i understand the hypothetical to evaluate that hypothetical in the context of rico the hypothetical is designed to make it hard for me to make it seem as though the enterprise is the bad actor but under section one thousand nine hundred sixty to see the enterprise is the victim of the corrupting conduct even in your hypothetical the enterprise is legally distinct from the person a person is the defendant the person doing the corrupting moreover the hypothetical you describe the pattern itself is not actionable under r opinion on the and bank he said any interpretation that suggests the upper it is of a foreign enterprise can't be had the countable under we go for a pattern a predicate a pattern  sixty two is the enterprise and under morrison the enterprise has to be domestic absent a clear indication to the contrary all of those predicate crimes are addressed by the underlying criminal links that pattern of conduct to the enterprise and it seems to be you know a little bit of a fool's errand to decide which the focus is when when rico is clearly something that melts the till and says there's a pattern of conduct and it relates in various kinds of ways to an enterprise perhaps but you could have said the same thing about morse and under which you need both deception on a securities transaction in order to have a section ten b violation so well the fact that some things can be separated doesn't mean that everything can be separated and the question is how is it possible to understand rico except as something in which these things are interim noted and at the very least that one is not prior to the other or more important than the other i mean if  going by our cases we've said about one hundred times that it's the predicate acts that are found eight that at the foundation of rico congress has congress has told you in the statutory findings what what they are concerned about it is infiltration and corruption of domestic enterprises consistent with that is the structure of section nine hundred sixty two three different provisions in each of them the proceeds to invest in an enterprise enterprise is the victim that's the object of congress's concern even with regard to nine hundred sixty four c the typical case they have in mind is infiltration could just get on the table the question about the one nine hundred sixty four c issue with regard to domestic enterprises the paradigmatic case that congress has in mind the racketeers infiltrate the union use racketeering proceeds to take it over that's the one nine hundred sixty for a violation and then they use the union to do bad things to extort money from its members or whatever that's a case in which the union is the vehicle for racketeering but it's not the racketeer it is the victim of criminal conduct the conducting the affairs of the union in that way is an example of corrupting conduct i'd like to just get one more caught on the table on the injury point before i sit down which is this court's decision in amp agree on where you applied the presumption and related principles of comedy to a case involving a foreign injuries caused by primarily foreign conduct and you said it would be unreasonable to do that as to violate customary international law that is exactly what we have here if you look at the complaint the underlying conduct that respondents say injured them are a series of foreign transactions and you can resolve this case based on and program alone if you wish to not write more broadly i'd like to reserve the balance of my time thank you counsel goldenberg mr chief justice and may please the court i'd like to talk about both the enterprise and the injury points but i'd like to start with the enterprise point because section one thousand nine hundred sixty two most directly affects the government's ability to bring rico prosecutions and rico civil actions as some of those questions have pointed out there are a number of predicates that are incorporated into rico into the definition of racketeering activity that have extraterritorial application some of them have slowly extraterritorial application and  clear indication that rico itself extends extraterritoriality to the extent that the predicates that are alleged in the case do and that is true both of the pattern itself the conduct of the crimes and also of the enterprise and you can see that if you look at the kinds of predicates that we're talking about here as was observed earlier many of them were incorporated into rico after nine eleven many of them involve terrorist conduct and the natural way in which the prisons would operate and congress would have understood this is that they would have swept in activities by foreign enterprises as well as the foreign conduct itself we've given a number of examples of those kinds of provisions in our brief the killing of a u s national abroad taking us hostages abroad shooting at aircraft with u s citizens abroad missile systems there's another example that is i think a very clear one that is section two three three nine d which is receiving military type training from a foreign terrorist organization although i suppose it is possible that somebody could go and receive that training in connection with their activities with a domestic enterprise the very natural operation of that provision is going to be that they're going to be carrying out the affairs of a foreign enterprise in fact the very foreign terrorist organization that is holding the military type training and has those training camps and so we think that it's clear that the provision has that section one hundred sixty two has extraterritorial both with respect to the foreign pattern of conduct of to the extent that a predicate with extra territorial applicability is implicated i have heard petitioners talk about two reasons why they think that may not be true both of which i think are incorrect one is that the government could just prosecute the underlying crimes themselves and not use rico and the other is that while in situations in which you have some people in the united states you could kind of break them off and call them a domestic enterprise and i don't think either of those is a workable approach to section one nine hundred sixty two with respect to just prosecuting the underlying crimes of course the very point of rico was that congress thought where they were patterns of serious crimes that just prosecuting the crime itself was not a strong enough tool for the government and that it was important for the government to have this special advantages that rico confers in order to root out the things that are causing these patterns of crime but rico imposes it seems to be and maybe even observed in the domestic context far more significant  the impact internationally could be far more significant than prosecution simply of the underlying offenses it obviously provides the government with extremely strong prosecutorial reach and  penalties far beyond what the substantive elements do and i'm wondering why that shouldn't cause us to be more concerned with respect to the comedy interests that are at stake we're talking about extraterritorial applicability i think is this court observe we're talking about section one thousand and sixty or something like section one hundred sixty two words that government that is choosing whether to prosecute or whether to bring a civil action the government has the ability it has the incentive to take those kinds of concerns into account and to regulate itself either to be constrained in bringing that kind of action where it might cause some comedy concerns or to deal government to government with another government to try to make sure that those comedy concerns are smoothed over it's on the  privates under section one thousand nine hundred four see where you have private parties bringing trouble damages actions that the concerns about comedy i think are much greater because private parties don't have that same ability or incentive to regulate when their very actions they are trying to get their trouble damages i thought this isn't the same question but that it's i'm elaborating a bit because it's both for you and mr fredericks or i thought the answer to my first question would be that the government just wanted the forfeit that's what put them in the criminal provisions that's why i put these other things in and you say that's right you say but they didn't want the damages to extend abroad that's your position yes that's for you wrote it in your brief ye and you're the state department for this purpose and you ought to know but then there are the e u and moreover not only do they tell us that the twenty seven nations of the e u don't agree with you but in  confusing about this is in the alien tort statute case which after all involved torture and not simply money laundering the e u countries at least three were in here with briefs i think it was germany  the netherlands and britain saying stay out of this stuff not completely but basically and you're on the other side ok so what's going on that is i mean and it's not just a that's not a criticism we have to write this and i think what you think and what those countries think is very important in matters like this and here they're taking what seem to be contradictory positions who do you talk to who do they talk to is this the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing in britain and in and in germany is it that no one actually spoke to anybody except a lawyer at the e u and then the e u never spoke to anybody in any of the relevant ministries of justice or any busy is it that you actually went and talked to the ambassadors of england germany the netherlands and so i asked them why do you want to take a different position in this case than you it seems to be then you took in in the other case i mean i have a few pages here i can't work with a few pages i have no idea what the right result is here in one important aspect unless i know what after thought and consideration you the state department in those other countries and their ambassadors it's actually think do i have enough here to deal with it what do i do i think you do have enough here to show what we actually think mr fry did you consult with the embassies did the state department go out and ask them to have their legal department over in germany look up what the actual effect would be of the damages or was it the e u that bore total responsibility for this matter without even consulting other three you see where i'm going and i'd like your best to answer it well i think that this is a very unusual case where you have foreign sovereigns as the private rico plaintiffs i think that won't usually be true and the rule that we are coming here to advance is going to be the rule for the usual case as well as the unusual case and so although it may be that the e u has special views about comedy concerns here where it's the plaintiff in the usual case the plaintiff is going to be a private party and it's going to be so to ation in which the conduct and injury took place somewhere else and the country were about conduct and that injury took place may very well have its own interest in regulating may not be appreciative of plainest being able to come to the united states to get remedies here particularly trouble remedy for this kind that and if it really is centered in that other state form that can mean a motion should be to be made to dismiss the action because it is a far more appropriate for this court suggested an epigram that going case by case with this kinds of these kinds of comedy concerns was too burdensome and too difficult for courts and it would be better to make a blanket judgment about the comedy concerns with respect to the cause of action as a whole and here of course we're talking not only about what court you're going to be in but what law is going to apply the courts of the united states are not being closed to rico plaintiffs if they can't bring a private claim for trouble addition to comedy concerns i think there are other things that point in the direction well then can i talk about your how many concerns because i understand them i mean they seem very important but once you say that the presumption against rebutted both the pattern of racketeering and the enterprise once you say that then drawing the line where you draw it seems to be very policy issue there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of law behind it so i want to give you an opportunity to make it as  you can draw the line here sure there are a number of things i think one is that just on the face of the provisions you can see that section one thousand sixty four c is not coextensive with with section one hundred sixty two congress chose to provide for recovery only for injury to business or property not for personal injury even though many of these predicates might be likely to cause personal injury in addition to that i think you have the comedy concerns which are an important underpinning of the presumption against extraterritoriality and as petitioners counsel pointed out you do have this background common law rule that the place of injury is going to be a place where the going to have the law governed whatever injury you're talking about rather than the law of some other jurisdiction thank you counsel was for frederick thank you mr chief justice in may please the court the european union and twenty six of its member states brought this case in the united states against the united states corporation for the actions it committed in the united states and from the united states that had effects in europe this was a completely logical and natural place for this case to be brought under us is that why is that so mr fredricka isn't it rather strange that  countries in europe member states of the european union are suing in the courts of the united states for injuries sustained to their business interests in europe why didn't they just sue in their own courts well first the fact that r j are has no subsidiary in europe raised a question of personal jurisdiction that would have affected the enforceability of judgments and you had an issue where you had twenty six member states that were being affected and the logical place for them and working together would be in the united states court for precisely the reason that when the legal advisor in one nine hundred eighty two testified after this cour pfizer decision about the applicability and reciprocity of having foreign countries come to united states courts the legal advisor testified that the united states had brought cases in over fifty jurisdictions around the world who were saying that the the law of personal jurisdiction in the the member states of the european union is similar to that in the united states that they would not under their laws they would say they do not have personal jurisdiction over jr justice alito what i'm saying is that it varies among the member states but what we do know is the defense dent the evidence the witnesses are here in the united states and the allegation is that they violated u s law and it is the same kind of action that the united states has brought in european member states for many many years did you in fact ask we did we indeed i mean what what happened there because look i'm faced with a situation where the state department is telling me one thing and it's an area i don't know about what will really happen in international relations that's their job and you are representing the e u which seems to be taking a position somewhat different than it took previously and i want to know who did you talk to you were thank you for asking me this question we presented information to the u s officials before the suit was filed and were told that the u s would be neutral as to it furthermore i can tell you that in twenty years of practicing before this court this is the single most comprehensively vetted exercise on my brief that i have ever had officials have gone over every single line and compared with the positions taken by member states in other cases and the reason why this isn't important to the e u and the consistency with which those positions is ma west zone for very important principles when congress extended rico extraterritorial e there are one of four components that is present in every single one of the forty some statutes that the solicitor general puts in  b the victim is an american the defendant is an american the perpetrator there is effect on us interests or there is conduct that occurs in the united states every one of those four components tracks with an important principle of international law the territoriality principle the nationality principle the passive protective personality principle and the protective personality so these issues are things that foreign conduct and foreign injuries and if personal jurisdiction and former inconvenient are satisfied then these actions could be brought under rico in foreign courts correct sorry in foreign courts or in english court and invoke rico not that i'm aware of one because i'm not aware that the english courts would apply rico in this way i have no brief to defend justice kennedy in this really you're saying that  know what the but it does justice kennedy and this is why it's actually important to go through statute by statute all of the provisions in the solicitor general's appendix and we've got a binder that's got every single one of and you can ask me about every one congress imposed  domestic proof requirement as to every extension of extraterritoriality for those crimes the victim had to be an american the defendant had to be an american conduct had to occur in the united states where there had to be some important interest of the united states that was at stake if those four elements were not require are not part of the statute then it would not track with the normal international law principles by which nations respect through comedy the regulations of conduct emanating from the shores of fact country i thought the victim here was the european community it is but the defendant is an american and conduct was occurring here in the united states and if you look at the money laundering statute thought earlier you were citing it you said the victim is one of those for all i'm saying is this one of the four here we have two of them if you look at the money laundering statute conduct occurred in the united states in the defendant was in the united states national and so international law is satisfied comedy principles are satisfied in those cases like the alien tort statute where you did not have a cause of action that had been drafted by congress and so therefore you did not have a legislative determination of the effect on common interests internationally you're left with a situation where you have judge made law and this court i think appropriately followed the guidance and advice of foreign nations which said be careful how far you extend judge made law there is a different principle at stake when there is a considered legislative judgment and a limitation on that extra territorial impact is one that has a very clear tie to the state owned actor or and an entity that's strongly supported by the the government and in those situations how would the comedy concerns of the foreign government be taken into account in the private treble damages action so it's hard for me to see based on your hypothetical mr chief justice which of the predicate crimes would be assertive is the underlying pattern of of racketeering actually thought  know you haven't found one here you have a racketeering activity that goes to the illegal trafficking in cigarettes right so i mean what if what if and you have a domestic crime predicates what if the  cigarettes were marketed through you know when you know with an enterprise very important to the good government of the no some government that sells cigarettes you can imagine other products in other words it's  here you have sort of an organized crime enterprise but the way the racketeering statute works and we have a lot of experience with this domestically it reaches far beyond what you would have thought congress had in mind when it used the word racketeering and certainly involves otherwise legitimate enterprises that this are chief justice my point is that if you look at each one of the acts that is incorporated and has an extra territorial component there's a correct height of the united states and the act the crimes have to be under federal or state law so with respect i think what you're hypothesizing is a situation that would be an old set and that's where these crimes are occurring in europe under european member state laws and somehow there's going to be a tie into an extra territorial in fact and i would not be subject to a rico clay and base that would have extra trick or consequences treble damages are not at all the reason why this case was brought in the united states and in fact if you want me to stipulate that we will not accept treble damages i've been authorized by my clients to say that that is not what we are seeking here what we are seeking here is a situation where an american company is operating through largely illegal cutouts and middlemen and organized criminal operators in europe and in the mediterranean and violating in affecting european enterprises the complaint in this case which is very detailed with respect to the introduction of cigarettes made and marketed in the united states are targeted to foreign country audiences but they are being sold through illegal channels through panama through other countries and into europe through organized crime and drug cartel operators i have seen the evidence for this i haven't looked at the documents from r j are i can tell you in the courts of another country well in fact unless there's something to your personal jurisdiction point and i really you know my understanding of of the law of a lot of european countries is that they have very broad understanding personal jurisdiction but put it putting that aside it would seem very strange well to choose to choose to sue in the courts of another country justice alito if if the european nations know that they are eventually going to have to come the united states to enforce the judgment and there is no there are no assets to attach in europe by r j or because it doesn't have subsidiaries there the simplest thing to do would be a one step process this suit was filed almost fifteen sixteen years ago fifteen sixteen years ago when we're still with a motion to dismiss stage you can imagine that from the perspective of litigation efficiency coming into the home forum of the defendant and saying we believe you are violating us laws and we seek redress for that that is perfectly appropriate if i could turn to the injury question the rico statute incorporated language of the clayton act which before nine hundred seventy had been construed to permit foreign plaintiffs to come into the united states and obtain foreign damages as a result of u s violations by the company in the united states the continental or case which was decided by this court in one thousand nine hundred sixty two is directly on point that case holds that injury suffered by candy and and entities could come in and come into the united states and get damages as a result of the violation of the clayton act in pfizer the government of india coupled with governments an american company now it's been in league with six foreign company and they have agreements and what the crime is is money laundering and the money laundering took place in belgium statute allow a the e u to come to philadelphia find our jr accuse them of money laundering with unindicted coconspirators in brussels get damages and then go to brussels and collect them from the other banks i i would assume that the belgian courts and i'm not going to profess to be an expert on the enforceability of judgments in belgium justice prior and so i give you that answer did i get a job against the farming i get a jet well presuming that there was personal here is the answer though the answer is that if those belgian banks are in a conspiracy with r j are it surely cannot be the case that u s law does not cover r j r if there is a question about not going to cover their activity our point is that it can't be the case where for centuries the united states courts have been open to allow foreign plaintiffs to comment alleging injury caused by u slicing and dicing where once you had concluded that the underlying action here was one that observed and respected international norms and went to extra territorial links provided in this case if there is a tie to the united states then whatever remedies are available are available and after five a number of u s companies were concerned about it and they went to congress and they ask congress to restrict it and the hearings that we've laid out in our brief and this page forty five no leaven goes into the legislative history of this and the state department justice prior to the exactly the opposite position because the state department said reciprocity demands that we be allowed to go into other nations courts and the fail ability of our courts for foreign nations to come in for violations of us and if you look at footnote thirteen which is on page fifty five they state department testified to congress that the united states had brought more than fifty actions in k nations around the world so the idea about comedy is one that respectfully i a decision that is made by congress and it is not for the executive branch to change its position for the purpose of trying to snuff out a remedy that otherwise would be available to a foreign a pla that argument with respect to what's the ordinary remedial provision of a statute but this is something a little bit more than that right because this statute also this provision also includes  substantive elements that don't apply except in the civil suit for damages isn't that right that's true so why doesn't that make the difference it could and justice kagan if you were to decide that the three verbs that are hundred sixty two a b and c which are influencing of buying or investing in had to have a domestic component we still would satisfy that because allegations in the complaint are that  headquarters in new york and winston salem was engaging in those contacts to affect in corrupt the foreign enterprise or the domestic intra price as was the case with brown and williamson well if we look just at nineteen sixty four application and where would be the focus of writing sixty four c would it be the injury to business or property so justice alito i would have two responses sixty four nine hundred sixty four incorporates correctly nine two so there is a direct reference to the definition of racketeering that has the some forty six predicate acts that have a clearly textual extra territorial effect so i think that by incorporation you would interpret it that way that time rico would not have an extra territorial application oh and i'm a my position is that the extra territory up patients got stronger over time but that if you were to adopt the normal canon of construction which is that when congress adopts words in a statute they carry with it the meaning that this court has given those words the same words were in the clayton act as they were adopted in one nine hundred seventy and as justice kagan pointed out the cases only become stronger with the addition of the money laundering imposed patriot act  dishes of those predicate acts but the thirty answer that i would give you justice alito is that even in morrison itself the court's opinion says once we have found there to be extra territorial application it's not for us to be deciding that there are different provisions that shouldn't have that and that's essentially the argument that is being made is to take an extension of morrison beyond where the court was but they didn't quite knackers even at this time it's been a nightmare for foreign countries and there's a always been controversy around it and there were cases called tambour lane and others which you know led to the kind of thing that the s g has described in his brave so the tape knack is helpful in one respect but not helpful in the other respects and my answer is congress has addressed some of those concerns in the antitrust area with various amendments that effect that that only go to conduct and classically what congress is getting at is conduct not remedy but in the conduct area what congress has done in one of the many trust amendments for the sherman act was to say we are only going to affect foreign conduct if it has a domestic effect but it is still a focus on conduct and not on a remedy congress is very well equipped to deal with this issue should it perceive that there to be a concern but justice prior i would point out that it would be odd to suppose that congress is intending to turn the united states into a place where criminal activities could occur from the united states it was affecting our closest allies and there was nothing those allies could do about it by going into the united states and trying to find a kate and seek redress for those harms that would be a very very stark departure from this country's long history of having respect and and provide a remedy for foreigners who are harmed by actions of the united states  if i could just address the i think i've addressed the epic rank question because that's the statute that was affected and if i could just note that the patriot act footnote ten of our brief points out that section then senator john kerry now secretary of state was very conscious of the effect that this would have on foreign nations and foreign litigants and when the patriot act extended certain of these predicate acts into rico he stated on the on the floor we cited that provision in our brief the reason for doing that was to give foreign nations that have been affected in who are treaty allies an opportunity to come and seek redress in our courts the last point is that mr katz is noted the choice of law principle where there is a foreign injury and there is a decision to apply for a long he says why should that apply here that only applies where there is a conflict between the laws that would apply here we're asserting that there is a u s statutory violation  s company for actions that it committed in part in the united states there is no reason to apply a choice of law because you have a foreign company that is or a foreign interests that are asserting a violation of u s domestic in every instance where congress made the decision to apply rico extraterritorial it imposed important domestic proof requirements that is the limiting principle on which the court ought to decide this case thank you thank you counsel mr katz with your four minutes from and justice prior you asked about government's positions the united states is the party that has to live with the consequences of your decision one way or the other they are telling you here that there is a comedy problem with respect there's no inconsistency with what they've said before an empty grand they told you the same thing that providing remedies for foreign injuries caused by largely foreign conduct would be a problem  was here as a party in this case but take a look at what they said in many other cases where they were in the more detached position as an ameco c e o b b in cable in sosa and most importantly in empathy and itself which is the case involving foreign injuries caused by largely foreign conduct they said in that case there would be a huge comedy problem with extending american law with regard to comedy justice kagan you ask is it is it too policy issue it's not because you have all of these background presumptions and principles i spoke about the presumption against extraterritoriality and about the common law background rule of lex loci to like a third principle is the charming betsy cannon th construe federal statutes not to violate international law absent a very clear statement to the contrary and that's what we have here because empty grand says that applying u s law to provide redress for foreign injuries caused by largely foreign conduct would be unreasonable and therefore a violation of customary international law you also ask why draw the line at injury once you establish the underlying of the underlying predicate applies extraterritorial first reason is that the decision to create a private right of action just is different from the decision to criminalize the conduct the money laundering statute applies extraterritorial but there's no private right of action for people injured by money laundering the second reason is that amply graham applies that principle to the question of injury and specifically does so with regard to the very anti trust  provisions that were in effect pre nine hundred eighty two in effect when rico was inactive to say there's this category of cases involving foreign injury where the government can prosecute but the private party cannot bring an action for civil redress and that's an important distinction precisely because private parties are not constrained by prosecutorial discretion it is aggressive to apply american criminal law but at least the government the justice department has to talk to the state department and take into account any comedy concerns any problems that particular prosecutions might bring that is not the case with respect to private plane if you're going to mr frederick said  that the underlying predicates here track international law that is true too in the sense that they are written to be consistent with section four zero two of the third restatement of foreign relations but there is an independent frederick said this case involves united states conduct petitioners are for transactions removed from the original problem in europe and two transactions removed from the cigarette sales  all of all of those involved european transactions and reynolds alleged conduct involves transactions in europe central and south america thank you counsel the case is submitted