IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 15-40062

MINISTRY OF OIL OF THE REPUBLIC OF IRAQ, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

KURDISTAN REGION OF IRAQ, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas

USDC No. 3:14-CV-249

Before HIGGINBOTHAM, DENNIS, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

The Ministry of Oil of the Republic of Iraq (the “Ministry”) filed a 

complaint alleging that the Kurdistan Regional Government (the “KRG”),

which administers a subsidiary region and political subdivision of the Republic 

of Iraq, unlawfully exported a particular cargo of oil from the country. The 

district court denied the KRG’s motion to dismiss and the KRG now appeals 

that decision. While this appeal was pending, the Ministry moved to dismiss 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

September 21, 2015

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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the appeal as moot, submitting uncontested evidence that the KRG had sold 

the subject oil in a foreign jurisdiction. We agree that the KRG’s sale of the oil 

moots the case and therefore dismiss this appeal.

BACKGROUND1

The Ministry exercises the Republic of Iraq’s powers in the oil and gas 

sector and represents the Republic of Iraq in suits related to oil. The KRG 

administers the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a northern region of the Republic of 

Iraq. Sometime between late-2013 and mid-2014, the KRG caused the 

equivalent of 1,032,212 barrels of crude oil (the “Cargo”), which had been 

extracted from oil wells in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, to be pumped through 

an oil pipeline to Ceyhan, Turkey. There, the Cargo was loaded aboard the 

UNITED KALAVRYTA (the “Vessel”), an oceangoing oil tanker. On June 23, 

2014, a bill of lading issued, stating that the Cargo would be delivered “unto 

order” of the KRG, and the Vessel left the port of Ceyhan. The Vessel was 

originally headed for the Port of Augusta, Italy, but its destination changed 

repeatedly and it eventually dropped anchor in the Gulf of Mexico, just over 60 

miles off the coast of Galveston, Texas. While the Vessel was in navigable 

waters, the KRG attempted to transfer title of the Cargo to a buyer in the 

United States. 

On July 28, 2014, the Ministry initiated the instant suit in the Southern 

District of Texas.2 On September 19, 2014, the Ministry filed its Second 

 

1 Because this appeal comes before us at the motion-to-dismiss stage, we accept the 

facts as alleged in the Ministry’s Second Amended Complaint, as well as the undisputed facts 

that have subsequently come to light. See Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349, 351 (1993).

2 The Ministry tells us a related suit is currently pending in Iraqi court. According to 

the Ministry, it filed suit on July 31, 2012, against the KRG in the Federal Supreme Court of 

Iraq to resolve issues regarding the KRG’s exportation of oil generally, not limited to the oil 

at issue in this appeal. The KRG, however, has failed to accept service of process or respond 

to summonses in that case. Because the Iraqi judicial system does not allow for default 

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Amended Complaint—the operative complaint in this appeal—making claims 

against the KRG pursuant to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976, 

28 U.S.C. §§ 1330, 1391(f), 1602-1611 (the “FSIA”), and claims against the KRG 

and an unknown “John Doe Buyer” pursuant to federal maritime law and

Texas state law. The complaint asserted that the KRG had engaged in tortious 

activity by exporting the Cargo and noted that any further sale of the Cargo

would prevent the Ministry from exercising any meaningful ownership rights. 

As relevant here, the complaint requested that the district court (1) declare the 

Ministry the owner of the Cargo and award the Ministry title; (2) award the 

Ministry permanent possession of the Cargo; (3) “order adjudge and decree that 

[the Ministry] have a decree against [the KRG] and John Doe Buyer” for its 

claims, along with interest and costs; and (4) award any other relief that the 

court deems proper. 

The KRG moved to dismiss the Ministry’s complaint, arguing that the 

Ministry’s claims presented a nonjusticiable political question; were barred by 

sovereign immunity under the FSIA; failed to establish admiralty jurisdiction;

were barred by the act of state doctrine; and lacked merit under Iraqi law. On 

January 7, 2015, the district court granted in part and denied in part the KRG’s 

motion to dismiss, leaving an in personam claim against the KRG for violation 

of Iraqi law and a state-law conversion claim against John Doe Buyer.3 See 

Ministry of Oil of the Republic of Iraq v. 1,032,212 Barrels of Crude Oil Aboard 

the United Kalavrvta, No. 3:14-CV-249, 2015 WL 93900, at *14 (S.D. Tex. Jan. 

7, 2015). 

 

judgments before the Federal Supreme Court, the KRG’s refusal to participate in that suit 

has prevented the case from proceeding.

3 The hypothetical John Doe Buyer has never been identified and is not a party to this 

appeal.

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On January 20, 2015, the KRG informed the district court that it would 

move the Vessel “to another destination in order to pass special surveys 

designed to maintain its class certification” but that it would also send 

additional oil shipments to the United States soon. The KRG did not state that 

it intended to remove the Cargo permanently or sell the Cargo in a foreign 

jurisdiction. On January 23, the KRG appealed as of right the district court’s 

denial of the KRG’s claim of sovereign immunity. The district court granted a 

stay pending appeal. Ministry of Oil of the Republic of Iraq v. 1,032,212 Barrels 

of Crude Oil Aboard the United Kalavrvta, No. 3:14-CV-249, 2015 WL 851920, 

at *5 (S.D. Tex. Feb. 26, 2015). As a condition of the stay, the district court 

ordered the KRG to give the Ministry ten days’ notice of “any further attempted 

sales or deliveries of oil in the Southern District of Texas.” Id. 

On April 7, 2015, we granted the KRG’s motion to expedite this appeal. 

On the same day, the Ministry filed a motion to dismiss the appeal as moot, on 

the grounds that the KRG had discharged the Cargo in Israel shortly after the 

district court had held that the KRG was not immune from this suit. The 

Ministry submitted evidence that the Vessel had weighed anchor on or around 

January 25, 2015, and had sailed to Ashkelon, Israel, where the Cargo had 

been discharged sometime between February 23, 2015, and March 3, 2015. We 

carried the Ministry’s motion to dismiss the appeal as moot with the case. 

DISCUSSION

The Ministry asks us to dismiss the appeal as moot or, in the alternative, 

to affirm the district court’s denial of the KRG’s motion to dismiss. The KRG 

seeks to have the district court’s decision reversed and the case dismissed on 

the basis of the political question doctrine, sovereign immunity under the 

FSIA, or the act of state doctrine. The KRG contends that we should consider 

the political question doctrine first, as it concerns subject matter jurisdiction, 

whereas mootness is merely prudential. Of course, both the political question 

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and mootness doctrines are justiciability doctrines. Choice Inc. of Tex. v. 

Greenstein, 691 F.3d 710, 715 (5th Cir. 2012). Similarly, they both touch on a 

federal court’s jurisdiction to hear a claim. See Lane v. Halliburton, 529 F.3d 

548, 565 (5th Cir. 2008) (“Invocation of the political question doctrine 

implicates the district court’s jurisdiction.”); United States v. Lares-Meraz, 452 

F.3d 352, 355 (5th Cir. 2006) (per curiam) (“Whether an appeal is moot is a 

jurisdictional issue because it implicates Article III’s requirement of a live case 

or controversy.”). Naturally, where a dispute is nonjusticiable under one 

doctrine, we need not consider whether it is also nonjusticiable under another.

See Sinochem Int’l Co. v. Malaysia Int’l Shipping Corp., 549 U.S. 422, 431 

(2007) (“[A] federal court has leeway to choose among threshold grounds for 

denying audience to a case on the merits.” (quotation marks omitted)); Gilligan 

v. Morgan, 413 U.S. 1, 5 (1973) (resolving case on political question grounds 

without reaching mootness). Because this appeal is most readily resolved on 

mootness grounds, we consider that doctrine alone.

I. Live Case or Controversy

The Ministry contends that this appeal is moot because the Cargo has 

been discharged in Israel, making possession of the oil impossible. “[A] federal 

court has no authority ‘to give opinions upon moot questions or abstract 

propositions, or to declare principles or rules of law which cannot affect the 

matter in issue in the case before it.’” Church of Scientology of Cal. v. United 

States, 506 U.S. 9, 12 (1992) (quoting Mills v. Green, 159 U.S. 651, 653 (1895)). 

“[A]n appeal must be dismissed when an event occurs while a case is pending 

on appeal that makes it impossible for the court to grant any effectual relief 

whatever to a prevailing party.” Motient Corp. v. Dondero, 529 F.3d 532, 537 

(5th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks omitted). “A claim becomes moot when the 

issues presented are no longer live or the parties lack a legally cognizable 

interest in the outcome.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). Neither we nor the 

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district court has the power to grant the Ministry’s requested relief, possession 

of the Cargo. Accordingly, this appeal is now moot. See In re Nat’l Mass Media 

Telecomm. Sys., Inc., 152 F.3d 1178 (9th Cir. 1998) (affirming dismissal of 

appeal as moot where property at issue was sold to a nonparty and only relief 

plaintiff had demanded was return of the property).

The KRG argues that the appeal is not moot because the Ministry’s 

complaint seeks relief beyond mere possession of the Cargo and those other 

requests present an ongoing case or controversy. “Where several forms of relief 

are requested and one of these requests subsequently becomes moot, the Court 

has still considered the remaining requests.” Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 

486, 496 n.8 (1969).

First, the KRG contends that the Ministry requested a declaratory 

judgment when it asked the court to (1) “declare[] [the Ministry] the owner of 

the Cargo and that title be awarded” to it and (2) “order, adjudge and decree 

that [the Ministry has] a decree against [the KRG] and John Doe Buyer” for its 

claims. The KRG suggests that these requests preserve a “definite and 

concrete” controversy that we could resolve. See MedImmune, Inc. v. 

Genentech, Inc., 549 U.S. 118, 127 (2007) (applying the Article III standing 

analysis to the “actual controversy” requirement found in the Declaratory 

Judgment Act); Cardinal Chem. Co. v. Morton Int’l, Inc., 508 U.S. 83, 98 (1993)

(holding appeal was not moot where sole issue remaining was request for 

declaratory relief). The Ministry responds that it did not request a declaratory 

judgment, but instead requested to be declared the owner of the Cargo because 

that is a predicate to obtaining permanent possession of the Cargo pursuant to 

maritime law. See Gulf Coast Shell & Aggregate LP v. Newlin, 623 F.3d 235, 

239 (5th Cir. 2010) (“[A] party seeking possession of a vessel under [Admiralty] 

Rule D must have legal title or a legal claim to possession.” (internal quotation 

marks omitted)); Goodpasture, Inc. v. M/V Pollux, 602 F.2d 84, 87 (5th Cir. 

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1979) (ruling that maritime suit for conversion of cargo turns on establishing 

ownership of the subject cargo).

The Ministry’s operative complaint makes clear that this is 

fundamentally a suit for possession of the Cargo. Nowhere in the complaint 

did the Ministry explicitly seek a declaratory judgment. Instead, the 

Ministry’s request to be “declared” owner of the Cargo is best understood as an 

attempt to satisfy the requirements for obtaining full possession of the Cargo

under admiralty law. See Gulf Coast Shell, 623 F.3d at 239; cf. Conn. Bank of 

Commerce v. Republic of Congo, 309 F.3d 240, 250 (5th Cir. 2002) (refusing to 

treat earlier court decision as a declaratory judgment where plaintiff had not 

“filed what was clearly a declaratory judgment action”). We will not ascribe to 

the Ministry a request for relief that does not appear in its complaint and 

which the Ministry explicitly disclaims. We thus conclude that the Ministry 

did not seek a declaratory judgment.4

Second, the KRG argues that because the Ministry requested “interest 

and costs” against the KRG and John Doe Buyer, a live controversy remains. 

As a general matter, an outstanding request for interest may prevent a dispute 

from becoming moot. See Templin v. Independence Blue Cross, 487 F. App’x 6, 

11 (3d Cir. 2012) (unpublished) (“Dismissal of the claims as moot without 

considering the plaintiffs’ entitlement to interest was error.”); Tucson Med. Ctr. 

v. Sullivan, 947 F.2d 971, 978 (D.C. Cir. 1991) (ruling that appellants’ interest 

claims were moot only if the underlying reimbursement claims were moot at 

the time they were filed); 13C CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER &

EDWARD H. COOPER, FEDERAL PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE: JURISDICTION AND 

RELATED MATTERS § 3533.3 (3d ed. 2008) (“[M]ootness is avoided by demands 

 

4 The Ministry’s redundant request that the court “order, adjudge and decree” that 

the Ministry has a “decree” against the KRG relates to the Ministry’s requests for possession 

of the Cargo, which is no longer available.

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for . . . interest.”). But this appeal does not present an ordinary request for 

prejudgment interest. “[T]he purpose of prejudgment interest is to put a 

plaintiff in the position he would have been in had he had his trial and 

recovered his judgment immediately after his injury.” Carlton v. H. C. Price 

Co., 640 F.2d 573, 576 (5th Cir. 1981); see also Monessen Sw. Ry. Co. v. Morgan, 

486 U.S. 330, 335 (1988) (“Prejudgment interest is normally designed to make 

the plaintiff whole and is part of the actual damages sought to be recovered.”).

Here, the Ministry does not seek money damages and cannot obtain 

possession of the Cargo, so prejudgment interest is not available. The KRG 

cites no case, and we have uncovered none ourselves, wherein prejudgment 

interest has been awarded where a plaintiff did not seek monetary damages. 

Cf. 28 U.S.C. § 1605(c) (in a suit to enforce a maritime lien against a foreign 

state, a decree “may include costs of the suit and, if the decree is for a money 

judgment, interest as ordered by the court.” (emphasis added)); 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1961 (“Interest shall be allowed on any money judgment in a civil case 

recovered in a district court.” (emphasis added)); West Virginia v. United 

States, 479 U.S. 305, 311 n.2 (1987) (“Prejudgment interest serves to 

compensate for the loss of use of money due as damages . . . .” (emphasis 

added)). Since the Ministry does not seek money damages, the district court 

likely could not award interest. Even if we assume, arguendo, that interest is 

theoretically available in a suit for possession of tangible goods, an award of 

interest would be inappropriate here, since the Ministry never obtained 

possession of the subject goods. Given that “[t]he essential rationale for 

awarding prejudgment interest is to ensure that an injured party is fully 

compensated for its loss,” City of Milwaukee v. Cement Division, National

Gypsum Co., 515 U.S. 189, 195 (1995), an award of interest cannot serve its 

purpose standing alone. It would thus be inappropriate to award interest in a 

suit for possession of tangible goods where such possession has become 

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impossible. See id. Because the Ministry has not requested money damages 

and cannot obtain possession of the Cargo, the Ministry’s demand for interest 

does not rescue this appeal from mootness.

Additionally, neither the Ministry’s request for court costs nor the court’s 

continuing power to award costs averts mootness as to the merits of the case. 

See U.S. Bancorp Mortg. Co. v. Bonner Mall P’ship, 513 U.S. 18, 20-22 (1994)

(concluding that no statute could authorize federal court to decide legal 

question posed in absence of Article III case or controversy . . . “[b]ut reason 

and authority refute the quite different notion that a federal appellate court 

may not take any action with regard to a piece of litigation once it has been 

determined that the requirements of Article III no longer are (or indeed never 

were) met”; noting that, in cases that have become moot, courts nonetheless 

have power to award costs and enter dismissal, and holding that they have 

power to vacate judgments entered by lower courts); see also, Heitmuller v. 

Stokes, 256 U.S. 359, 362-363 (1921) (“Where no controversy remains, except 

as to costs, this court will not pass upon the merits.” (citing In re Paper-Bag 

Cases, 105 U.S. 766, 772 (1881)).

Third, the KRG asserts that the Ministry did, in fact, request money 

damages for the allegedly converted oil, because the operative complaint asked 

for “such other and further relief that [the] Court deems just and proper.” 

However, the Ministry did not explicitly request damages in its complaint, the 

district court did not suggest that the Ministry sought damages, and the 

Supreme Court has cautioned courts to approach with skepticism claims for 

damages “extracted late in the day from [a] general prayer for relief and 

asserted solely to avoid otherwise certain mootness.” Arizonans for Official 

English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 71 (1997) (discussing eleventh-hour allegation 

that nominal damages were requested); see also Fox v. Bd. of Trustees of the 

State Univ. of N.Y., 42 F.3d 135, 142 (2d Cir. 1994) (“[W]e perceive no basis to 

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allow a belated claim for damages to breathe life into a moribund dispute.” 

(internal quotation marks omitted)). Moreover, undesired damages should not 

be “foisted upon the parties by the court.” Sapp v. Renfroe, 511 F.2d 172, 176 

n.3 (5th Cir. 1975). Since the Ministry never explicitly requested damages and 

now disavows any such request, we will not foist it upon the Ministry. 

Last, the KRG makes a number of still less persuasive arguments 

against mootness. The KRG suggests the appeal is not moot because the 

district court ordered the KRG to provide ten days’ notice of any additional oil 

sales in the Southern District of Texas, but that was merely a condition of the 

court’s stay pending appeal, not a remedy for the alleged harm. The KRG 

further contends that this appeal is not moot because it has stated an intention 

to ship more oil for sale in the United States, but hypothetical future shipments 

do not prevent the dispute regarding the Cargo at issue here from being moot. 

See Staley v. Harris Cnty., 485 F.3d 305, 307-09 (5th Cir. 2007) (en banc)

(holding that suit over display of monument featuring the Bible at a county 

courthouse was mooted by removal of the monument during renovations, and 

that any dispute over a probable redisplay was not ripe for review because the 

precise manner in which the monument would be redisplayed was unknown). 

We conclude that because the KRG has made possession of the Cargo 

impossible, and because the Ministry requested no other available relief, we

must dismiss this appeal as moot. See Thibaut v. Ourso, 705 F.2d 118, 121 

(5th Cir. 1983) (“[I]f, pending an appeal an event occurs which renders it 

impossible for [an] appellate court to grant any relief or renders the decision 

unnecessary, the appeal will be dismissed as moot.” (quoting NLRB v. O.E. 

Szekely & Assocs., Inc., 259 F.2d 652, 654 (5th Cir. 1958), which referred to and 

approved the Seventh Circuit’s holding in Fink v. Cont’l Foundry & Mach. Co., 

240 F.2d 369 (7th Cir. 1957))).

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II. Vacatur

Having decided that this appeal is moot, we now consider whether to 

vacate the district court’s order. Although federal appellate courts historically 

vacated a lower court’s decision whenever a case became moot on appeal, see 

United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36, 39 (1950), the Supreme Court 

has since moved away from that default practice, see U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. 

at 23-24. Vacatur is an “equitable” and “extraordinary” remedy. Id. at 26. 

“[V]acatur is to be determined on a case-by-case basis, governed by facts and 

not inflexible rules.” Staley, 485 F.3d at 310. “The principal condition to which 

[the Supreme Court has] looked is whether the party seeking relief from the 

judgment below caused the mootness by voluntary action.” U.S. Bancorp, 513 

U.S. at 24. “[W]here mootness results from the voluntary actions of the losing 

party, such party has ‘forfeited his legal remedy by the ordinary processes of 

appeal or certiorari, thereby surrendering his claim to the equitable remedy of 

vacatur.’” Sierra Club v. Glickman, 156 F.3d 606, 620 (5th Cir. 1998) (quoting 

U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 24).

Our en banc decision in Staley is particularly instructive. Staley sought 

to enjoin Harris County, Texas, from the continued display of a Bible in a 

monument located on the grounds of the county courthouse. Staley, 485 F.3d 

at 307. The district court ordered Harris County to remove the Bible, holding 

that its presence violated the Establishment Clause. Id. A panel of this court 

affirmed, and the county sought rehearing en banc. Id. Some two months 

before en banc oral argument was to be heard, we learned that the county 

courthouse had been closed and requested supplemental briefing on the 

question of mootness. Id. Harris County then informed us that the monument, 

including the Bible, would be removed and placed in storage for at least two 

years, while the courthouse underwent renovations, but asserted that the 

monument would be redisplayed once the courthouse reopened. Id. at 307-08. 

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We held that the county’s removal of the Bible mooted the case and we refused 

to vacate the district court’s judgment. Id. at 314. We stressed that the county 

had mooted the suit through its voluntary actions, although it did not do so for 

the purpose of mooting the case. Id. at 312. We also determined that the 

county’s promise to redisplay the monument and its failure to inform the court 

of the possible mootness counseled against vacatur. Id. at 313. Accordingly, 

we held that the county had failed to show that the balance of the equities 

favored vacating the district court’s judgment. Id. at 314.

Here, the KRG mooted this appeal through its voluntary decision to 

discharge the Cargo in Israel. In so doing, the KRG severely weakened its 

argument for equitable relief. See U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 24. Like the 

county in Staley, the KRG contends that it did not moot the case for the purpose 

of depriving us of jurisdiction, but the Staley court determined that that does 

not suffice to establish entitlement to the extraordinary remedy of vacatur. See 

Staley, 485 F.3d at 312. Also like the county in Staley, the KRG has said that 

it plans to send additional shipments of oil in the future, which further 

undermines its argument for vacatur. Id. at 313. Additionally, “[w]here, as 

here, the complexion of the case has entirely changed while appeal is pending, 

counsel for both parties have an obligation to so inform the court. That is so 

even if a party believes it has a basis for arguing that the issue should still be 

decided.” Mansourian v. Regents of the Univ. of Cal., 602 F.3d 957, 963 n.5

(9th Cir. 2010). The KRG failed to inform the court that it had discharged the 

Cargo in a foreign port, thus making vacatur still less appropriate. See id.; see 

also Staley, 485 F.3d at 313. Having considered the facts of this particular 

case, we hold that the KRG has not carried its burden “to demonstrate 

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‘equitable entitlement to the extraordinary remedy of vacatur.’” See Staley, 485 

F.3d at 310 (quoting U.S. Bancorp, 513 U.S. at 26).5 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we GRANT the Ministry’s motion to dismiss 

this appeal as moot.

 

5 Since we dismiss this appeal as moot and do not reach the KRG’s other jurisdictional 

or merits arguments, we express no opinion as to the correctness of the district court’s 

decisions below. See Sierra Club v. Glickman, 156 F.3d 606, 620 n.8 (5th Cir. 1998).

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