Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07079/USCOURTS-caDC-09-07079-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Atlantic Group, SCI
Appellant
Credit Foncier Du Cameroun
Appellee
Government of The Republic of Cameroon
Appellee
MBI Group, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 22, 2010 Decided August 6, 2010

No. 09-7079

MBI GROUP, INC. AND ATLANTIC GROUP, SCI,

APPELLANTS

v.

CREDIT FONCIER DU CAMEROUN AND GOVERNMENT OF THE 

REPUBLIC OF CAMEROON,

APPELLEES

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:07-cv-00637-JDB)

Philip M. Musolino argued the cause for appellants. With 

him on the briefs was Sylvia J. Rolinski. Danielle E. Musolino

entered an appearance.

Knox Bemis argued the cause and filed the brief for 

appellees.

Before: GINSBURG, TATEL and GRIFFITH, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge GRIFFITH.

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GRIFFITH, Circuit Judge: When a purported deal to 

develop affordable housing in Cameroon fell apart, MBI 

Group, Inc., and Atlantic Group, SCI, sued the government of 

Cameroon and a state-owned mortgage finance corporation, 

Crédit Foncier du Cameroun. Concluding it would be more 

appropriate for this case to be heard in Cameroon, the district 

court dismissed the suit on the ground of forum non 

conveniens. Plaintiffs appeal the dismissal as well as the 

district court’s denial of their motion for reconsideration, and 

we affirm.

I.

In 2007, MBI Group, a Delaware corporation, and Atlantic 

Group, MBI’s Cameroonian affiliate, brought suit in the 

district court seeking damages from Crédit Foncier du 

Cameroun (CFC) and the government of Cameroon for breach 

of contract and various commercial torts. Plaintiffs allege they 

had an agreement with CFC to construct low-cost housing in 

Cameroon, but that government officials there quashed the 

project when Roger Tchoufa, MBI’s representative in 

Cameroon, rebuffed their demands for bribes. According to 

defendants, the project was only an illegal ploy to enable 

self-dealing by a crooked official of CFC. 

The district court decided that the Cameroonian courts 

were better suited to sort out what actually happened, and, on 

June 10, 2008, granted defendants’ motion for a forum non 

conveniens dismissal. MBI Group, Inc. v. Credit Foncier du 

Cameroun (MBI I), 558 F. Supp. 2d 21 (D.D.C. 2008). “[I]n an 

abundance of caution and to avoid any potential undue 

prejudice to plaintiffs,” the court conditioned the dismissal “on 

the Cameroonian courts’ acceptance of the case.” Id. at 31.

Plaintiffs moved for reconsideration of the dismissal two 

weeks later, styling their motion both as one to alter or amend a 

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judgment under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) and as a 

one for relief from a final judgment under Rule 60(b). Their 

primary contention was that they could not possibly make the 

prohibitively steep deposit required for a court in Cameroon to 

consider their case. Unwilling to accept plaintiffs’ claims about 

the deposit, the district court dismissed their motion for 

reconsideration without prejudice pending a ruling from a 

Cameroonian court specifying what that nation’s law required. 

See MBI Group, Inc. v. Credit Foncier du Cameroun (MBI II), 

No. 07-0637, slip op. at 1–2 (D.D.C. Mar. 23, 2009).

After the court in Cameroon dismissed their suit, plaintiffs 

renewed their motion for reconsideration in the district court, 

which was denied on June 23, 2009. The district court 

concluded that the ruling of the Cameroonian court did not 

support plaintiffs’ claims about the deposit, and that plaintiffs 

offered no other ground for overturning the dismissal. See MBI 

Group, Inc. v. Credit Foncier du Cameroun (MBI III), 627 F. 

Supp. 2d 35, 38–41 (D.D.C. 2009).

Plaintiffs noticed an appeal. There is some confusion as to 

whether that appeal is limited to the June 23, 2009 order 

denying reconsideration or includes the June 10, 2008 order 

dismissing their suit as well. Compare Notice of Appeal, MBI 

Group, Inc. v. Credit Foncier du Cameroun, No. 07-0637 

(D.D.C. July 22, 2009) (indicating an intent to appeal both 

rulings), with Appellants’ Br. at i (listing the district court’s 

denial of reconsideration as the only ruling under review). 

Little turns on this. Two of the three arguments plaintiffs press 

before us involve events occurring after the dismissal of their 

suit in the district court, and thus implicate only their request 

for reconsideration. To the limited extent the original dismissal 

is concerned, defendants have had the opportunity to respond 

to plaintiffs’ arguments and suffer no prejudice by our 

consideration of that ruling. We therefore proceed under the 

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assumption that plaintiffs properly appealed both the denial of 

reconsideration and the underlying dismissal. 

We have jurisdiction to review these rulings under 28 

U.S.C. § 1291 (2006). See Ciralsky v. CIA, 355 F.3d 661, 668 

(D.C. Cir. 2004) (dismissal order and denial of a Rule 59(e) 

motion); Servants of Paraclete v. Does, 204 F.3d 1005, 1008 

(10th Cir. 2000) (denial of a Rule 60(b) motion). We review 

the forum non conveniens dismissal as well as the denial of 

relief under Rules 59(e) and 60(b) for abuse of discretion. See 

Agudas Chasidei Chabad v. Russian Fed’n, 528 F.3d 934, 950 

(D.C. Cir. 2008) (forum non conveniens dismissal); Firestone 

v. Firestone, 76 F.3d 1205, 1208 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (per curiam)

(denial of a Rule 59(e) motion); Twelve John Does v. District 

of Columbia, 841 F.2d 1133, 1138 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (denial of a 

Rule 60(b) motion).

II.

There is a “substantial presumption” in favor of a 

plaintiff’s chosen forum. Agudas Chasidei Chabad, 528 F.3d 

at 950. A court may nonetheless dismiss a suit for forum non 

conveniens if the defendant shows there is an alternative forum 

that is both available and adequate and, upon a weighing of 

public and private interests, the strongly preferred location for 

the litigation. Id. In this case, the district court found a viable 

forum in Cameroon and rejected plaintiffs’ concerns that they 

would be incapable of getting a fair trial there. MBI I, 558 F. 

Supp. 2d at 28–32. Weighing the private and public interests, 

the court concluded that the scale tipped heavily in favor of 

adjudication in Cameroon. Id. at 32–36.

As noted above, two issues plaintiffs raise on appeal 

concern only their motion for reconsideration. They argue that, 

upon reconsideration, the district court should have 

(1) determined that an exorbitant court deposit effectively 

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blocked the prosecution of their suit in Cameroon and

(2) concluded that Cameroon was an inadequate forum in light 

of the default convictions Roger Tchoufa and his wife 

sustained there. Plaintiffs’ final contention is that the public 

and private interests favored trial in the United States. We 

consider each argument in turn.

A.

After the district court conditionally dismissed this suit, 

plaintiffs sued defendants in Cameroon. Upon the filing of that 

action, the court clerk requested a deposit of roughly five 

percent of the judgment sought. Because plaintiffs’ complaint 

claimed $500 million in damages, the bill approached $25 

million. Seeking reconsideration in the district court, plaintiffs 

argued that they could not pursue their claims in Cameroon on 

account of this prohibitively expensive deposit. They claimed 

that the subsequent dismissal of their Cameroonian suit 

definitively established that the deposit was unavoidable and, 

as such, an insurmountable obstacle to satisfaction of the 

district court’s condition that the Cameroonian courts accept 

their case.

The district court determined that plaintiffs—and not a 

deposit requirement—were the real obstacle to the success of 

their Cameroonian suit because they “at every step of the way 

impeded the Cameroonian courts’ ability to consider their 

case.” MBI III, 627 F. Supp. 2d at 38. On appeal, plaintiffs 

contend the district court should have concluded that the courts 

in Cameroon, by demanding an exorbitant filing fee, were

effectively unavailable to them.

The district court was within its discretion in denying 

reconsideration if in fact plaintiffs sabotaged their own suit. 

See In re Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 420 F.3d 702, 707 (7th 

Cir. 2005) (explaining that if the “plaintiffs did not act in good 

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faith and manipulated the dismissal of their case in Mexico, the 

district court should regard itself as free once again to dismiss 

this complaint”). A conditional forum non conveniens 

dismissal protects a plaintiff against the possibility that the 

foreign forum will not hear his case. It does not give the 

plaintiff license to deliberately prevent his suit in the foreign

court from going forward in order to render an alternative 

forum defective. The only question we face, then, is whether 

the district court abused its discretion in concluding that “the 

blame for plaintiffs’ case being dismissed by the Cameroonian 

court must be placed on plaintiffs themselves.” MBI III, 627 F. 

Supp. 2d at 40. We find no abuse of discretion in this 

conclusion.

To begin with, the district court reasonably determined 

that potential alternatives to making the $25 million deposit

were available to plaintiffs. See id. Although plaintiffs’ legal 

experts said the deposit was unavoidable, defendants 

vigorously disagreed. They submitted that all but about $140 of 

the $25 million deposit reflected a tax that plaintiffs would owe 

only if they recovered the amount sought. Defendants’ experts 

identified at least three ways by which plaintiffs could avoid 

this payment: they could omit the amount sought from their

complaint, obtain a deferral of the payment until the entry of 

judgment, or seek judicial review of the amount requested on 

the theory that no tax payment is required in a suit against the 

government and a government corporation. Defendants even 

secured successive hearings in a Cameroonian court to argue 

for a lower deposit. Plaintiffs failed to appear.

In light of these alternatives, the district court instructed 

plaintiffs to pursue ways of “reducing, waiving, or at least 

postponing the deposit.” MBI Group v. Credit Foncier du 

Cameroun, No. 07-0637, slip op. at 3 (D.D.C. Oct. 20, 2008).

In particular, the court warned plaintiffs they could not 

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“ignore” the opportunity to contest the deposit amount and 

then expect the court to find the Cameroonian forum 

unavailable. Id. at 2.

Chided by the district court, plaintiffs finally appeared in

the Cameroonian proceedings. But once there, they argued that 

the amount of the deposit could not be altered. They also 

highlighted a second procedural defect in their case: they had 

failed to return the original copy of the summons for their 

lawsuit, which is a threshold requirement to bring an action in 

Cameroon. They even objected to the proceedings altogether, 

arguing it was their exclusive right to seek a hearing on the 

deposit, and that defendants could not request one on their 

behalf. For their part, defendants argued that no tax payment

was needed in a suit against the state and a state-owned entity.

The Cameroonian court issued an opinion declaring 

plaintiffs’ suit “inadmissible for failure to make a deposit and 

to file the original of the summons.” J.A. 355 (MBI Group, Inc. 

v. Crédit Foncier du Cameroun, S.A., Civil Judgment No. 29, 

Higher Court of Yaoundé (Mar. 31, 2009) (translation at 44)).

Plaintiffs claimed victory, arguing that the Cameroonian court

had adopted their position that the $25 million deposit was 

obligatory, thereby making the prosecution of their claim in 

Cameroon infeasible. 

The district court disagreed. It determined that the 

dismissal was effectively for failure to prosecute. See MBI III, 

627 F. Supp. 2d at 39. In the court’s view, plaintiffs chose not 

to satisfy the threshold procedural requirements to suit in 

Cameroon—paying a deposit and returning the summons. 

They also chose not to seek relief from those requirements. 

What’s more, they essentially asked that their procedural 

defaults be enforced against them. See id. The district court 

found no reason to suppose that a Cameroonian court, any 

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more than an American one, would compel plaintiffs to pursue

advantageous procedural alternatives they consciously 

eschewed. See id. (“[A]lthough U.S. courts permit filing fees to 

be reduced for plaintiffs without adequate financial means, a 

U.S. court cannot require a plaintiff to file the application 

needed for in forma pauperis status.”). The district court 

concluded that the possibility of success was not so remote “as 

to excuse plaintiffs’ duty to proceed in good faith in Cameroon 

in an attempt to reduce the clerk’s initial determination of a $25 

million deposit.” Id. at 40. Accordingly, the district court 

adhered to its prior determination that the Cameroonian courts 

offered an available alternative forum.

Plaintiffs maintain the district court abused its discretion 

because the decision of the court in Cameroon, properly 

understood, established that the $25 million deposit was 

mandatory. We disagree. The Cameroonian ruling did not 

address defendants’ arguments concerning the deposit. 

Perhaps, as plaintiffs contend, this omission amounts to an 

implicit rejection of defendants’ position that the deposit 

amount was set in error. But this silence could just as easily 

reflect acceptance of plaintiffs’ argument that the court should 

not permit defendants to challenge the deposit on plaintiffs’ 

behalf. Or it could reflect a position defendants have advanced: 

that without the return of the summons, the court could not 

adjudicate the deposit amount. Had plaintiffs argued for a 

reduction in or deferral of the deposit or had they returned the 

summons, we might know whether the deposit was the 

insuperable hurdle they make it out to be. But plaintiffs took 

none of these courses, and we remain in the dark.

Though plaintiffs bristle at the notion that their actions 

suggest bad faith, we fail to see how they could be 

characterized otherwise. The district court specifically 

instructed plaintiffs to seize the opportunity to be heard on the 

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deposit issue and pursue the alternatives defendants had 

identified. Plaintiffs did just the opposite. The bottom line is 

simple: plaintiffs consistently worked to undermine their suit 

in Cameroon, and the district court did not abuse its discretion 

in concluding that their efforts succeeded. 

B.

An alternative forum is inadequate if the plaintiff will be 

“treated unfairly” there. Piper Aircraft Co. v. Reyno, 454 U.S. 

235, 255 (1981); see, e.g., Tuazon v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco 

Co., 433 F.3d 1163, 1179 (9th Cir. 2006) (noting that the 

prevalence of corruption, delay or bias may render a forum 

inadequate). Plaintiffs argue that the district court should have

granted reconsideration in light of new evidence strengthening

their previously unsuccessful claim that Cameroon was an 

inadequate forum because plaintiffs could not receive a fair 

trial there. We do not reach the merits of this argument because 

plaintiffs failed to preserve it below.

In opposing defendants’ motion to dismiss, plaintiffs 

argued that they would not be treated fairly in a Cameroonian 

court. The problem lay in the supposed desire of the 

Cameroonian executive to retaliate against plaintiffs for Roger 

Tchoufa going public with the bribery demands made of MBI. 

This animus drove an alleged campaign of harassment against 

Tchoufa that included prosecuting him and his wife for their 

purported role in the corruption at CFC. Plaintiffs maintained 

that the executive would be able to further its vendetta by 

ordaining an adverse result against them in the courts. In 

granting defendants’ motion to dismiss, the district court 

rejected this argument because plaintiffs produced insufficient 

evidence to rebut defendants’ showing that the judiciary in 

Cameroon was independent from executive influence. MBI I, 

558 F. Supp. 2d at 29–30.

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In their first motion for reconsideration, filed on June 24, 

2008, plaintiffs did not contest the district court’s conclusion 

that the courts in Cameroon were independent. Then, on July 

11, 2008, a Cameroonian court convicted Tchoufa and his wife 

in absentia on what plaintiffs claim were bogus charges of 

misappropriating public funds. In their reply to defendants’ 

opposition to their motion, plaintiffs pointed to the convictions 

as new evidence of the inability of Cameroon’s judiciary to 

withstand executive pressure. 

The district court, without addressing the convictions or 

any other issue plaintiffs raised, dismissed plaintiffs’ motion 

without prejudice pending the result of the Cameroonian 

proceeding on the deposit issue. MBI II, slip op. at 2. This left 

plaintiffs free to raise in a renewed motion for reconsideration 

their previous arguments in favor of vacating the dismissal of 

their suit.

Plaintiffs filed that renewed motion on April 20, 2009, but 

it said nothing of the Tchoufas’ convictions. Indeed, they

raised no argument at all about the independence of the 

Cameroonian judiciary. They argued instead that the district 

court should vacate the dismissal on account of the prohibitive 

court deposit or, “[i]n the alternative,” because of its allegedly 

erroneous conclusions concerning the public interests

implicated by this suit, as well as “the impact of the 

unavailability of MBI’s representative [Tchoufa] in 

Cameroon.” Memo. in Support of Pls. Renewed Mot. for 

Reconsideration at 2. This last point did not address any 

shortcoming in Cameroonian justice, but stressed instead the 

disadvantages that would result from Tchoufa’s reluctance to 

attend a trial in Cameroon. Only at the end of their reply to 

defendants’ opposition to the renewed motion did plaintiffs 

even mention the convictions. 

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The district court did not address whether the convictions

gave support to plaintiffs’ concerns about the Cameroonian 

forum. Nor do we. “We root this decision in our 

well-established discretion not to consider claims that litigants 

fail to raise sufficiently below and on which district courts do 

not pass.” Cruz v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 356 F.3d 320, 329 (D.C. 

Cir. 2004). Though “[t]here is no bright-line rule to determine 

whether a matter has been properly raised” below, Edmond v. 

U.S. Postal Serv. Gen. Counsel, 949 F.2d 415, 422 (D.C. Cir. 

1991), “district courts, like this court, generally deem 

arguments made only in reply briefs to be forfeited,” 

Pardo-Kronemann v. Donovan, 601 F.3d 599, 610 (D.C. Cir. 

2010). We see no reason to deviate from that principle here. 

“[R]eply briefs reply to arguments made in the response 

brief—they do not provide the moving party with a new 

opportunity to present yet another issue for the court’s

consideration.” Novosteel SA v. United States, 284 F.3d 1261, 

1274 (Fed. Cir. 2002).

That plaintiffs raised the convictions during the 

proceedings on their first reconsideration motion does not 

excuse their failure to present the issue in their renewed motion 

for reconsideration. District courts need not refer back to prior

filings to identify arguments that the moving party could (and 

should) have addressed in the motion then under consideration. 

By failing to raise the issue of the convictions in their renewed 

motion for reconsideration, plaintiffs failed to preserve it for 

our review.

Because plaintiffs raise no other objection to the district 

court’s underlying assessment of the independence of 

Cameroon’s judicial branch, see Appellants’ Br. at 28–30 

(arguing only that the Tchoufa’s convictions demonstrated that 

the Cameroonian judiciary lacked independence), we need not 

consider the merits of that decision. Nevertheless, we pause to 

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clarify a point of law that figured into the district court’s 

original dismissal of the suit. Plaintiffs had introduced a State 

Department report that found that the judiciary in Cameroon 

was subject to executive influence. The district court 

discounted this showing, explaining that “binding authority in 

this jurisdiction defeats plaintiffs’ reliance upon the State 

Department’s report.” MBI I, 558 F. Supp. 2d at 30. The 

authority relied upon was a passage in El-Fadl v. Central Bank 

of Jordan explaining that a “foreign forum is not inadequate

. . . because of general allegations of corruption in the judicial 

system” and that “reliance on a State Department report

expressing ‘concern about the impartiality’ of the [foreign]

court system . . . is unavailing” to show inadequacy. 75 F.3d 

668, 678 (D.C. Cir. 1996), abrogated on other grounds by 

Samantar v. Yousuf, 130 S. Ct. 2278 (2010).

El-Fadl does not erect a per se bar to the consideration of 

State Department reports in a forum non conveniens inquiry. 

To be sure, “general allegations” of deficiency do not alone 

warrant the conclusion that a foreign forum is inadequate. Id. 

But it does not follow that State Department reports are 

irrelevant to the inquiry. Such reports could be relevant to the 

extent they provide reliable information that corroborates a 

plaintiff’s claims about the character of another nation’s 

judiciary. However, because plaintiffs have not raised the issue 

for our review, we do not address whether the district court 

erred in discounting the State Department report proffered in 

this case.

C.

In dismissing plaintiffs’ suit, the district court determined

that the relevant private and public interests strongly favored 

litigating this matter in Cameroon. See MBI I, 558 F. Supp. 2d 

at 32–36. Plaintiffs contend the district court should have given

greater weight to the U.S. government’s fight against foreign 

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corruption as a public interest weighing in favor of an 

American forum. The district court did not abuse its discretion 

in refusing to do so. 

The Supreme Court laid out the interests to be considered 

in the forum non conveniens inquiry in Gulf Oil Corp. v. 

Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501 (1947). The private interests include 

“ease of access to sources of proof”; “availability of 

compulsory process for attendance of unwilling” witnesses;

“the cost of obtaining attendance of willing” witnesses; the 

“possibility of view of premises” by the court and jury if 

needed; and “all other practical problems that make trial of a 

case easy, expeditious and inexpensive.” Id. at 508. The public 

interest factors include the “local interest in having localized 

controversies decided at home”; the possibility of holding the 

trial in a forum “at home with the [] law that must govern the 

case, rather than having a court in some other forum untangle 

problems in conflict of laws, and in law foreign to itself”; and 

avoiding the imposition of jury duty on “people of a 

community which has no relation to the litigation” and other 

“administrative difficulties” that flow from foreign litigation 

congesting local courts. Id. at 508–09. 

The district court concluded that the private interests 

clearly favored a Cameroonian forum because of the numerous 

hurdles to proceeding in the United States, including the cost 

and complexity of the French-to-English translation necessary 

for taking evidence and testimony, the court’s inability to 

subpoena unwilling witnesses located in Cameroon, and the 

cost of producing the willing ones. MBI I, 558 F. Supp. 2d at 

32–34. The court determined that the public interests also

supported dismissal. It found the United States’s interest in 

seeing domestic companies made whole for injuries sustained 

abroad outweighed by Cameroon’s superior interest in a matter

involving a development project and official corruption in that 

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country as well as the district court’s unfamiliarity with 

Cameroonian law. Id. at 34–36. 

Plaintiffs argue that the district court abused its discretion 

in ignoring the United States’ interest in protecting domestic 

corporations, like MBI, from the corrupt practices of foreign 

governments, such as the bribery demands plaintiffs say 

scuttled their project. Plaintiffs consider this interest to be a 

part of the government’s interest in having this controversy 

resolved in the United States. But they identify no case in 

which this purported interest in fighting foreign corruption 

figured into a court’s forum non conveniens analysis. Even if it 

were an appropriate consideration, at most it would be matched 

against Cameroon’s own significant interest in this

controversy, but it would hardly disturb the district court’s 

overall conclusion that the public and private interests strongly 

favored dismissal. We therefore conclude that the district court 

did not abuse its discretion in weighing the public and private 

interests.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, the dismissal of plaintiffs’ suit 

and the denial of their renewed motion for reconsideration are

Affirmed.

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