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TURKIYE HALK BANKASI A. S. v. UNITED STATES 

Opinion of the Court 

v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 583 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip 
op., at 4); Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U. S. 677, 689 
(2004).

In  1952, 

the  State  Department  announced 

the 
“restrictive”  theory  of  foreign  sovereign  immunity,  under 
which immunity was typically afforded in cases involving a
foreign  state’s  public  acts,  but  not  its  strictly  commercial 
acts.  Rubin, 583 U. S., at ___–___ (slip op., at 4–5).  In the 
ensuing years, the process by which the Executive Branch 
submitted statements regarding a foreign state’s immunity
sometimes led to inconsistency, particularly in light of the
case-by-case diplomatic pressure that the Executive Branch
received from foreign nations.  Verlinden, 461 U. S., at 487. 
And when foreign states did not ask the State Department 
to weigh in, courts were left to render immunity rulings on
their own, generally by reference to prior State Department
decisions.  Opati  v.  Republic  of  Sudan,  590  U. S.  ___,  ___ 
(2020) (slip op., at 2); Verlinden, 461 U. S., at 487. 

In  1976,  Congress  entered  the  fray  and  sought  to
standardize the judicial process with respect to immunity
for foreign sovereign entities in civil cases.  Congress passed 
and  President  Ford  signed  the  Foreign  Sovereign
Immunities Act.  The FSIA prescribed a “comprehensive set
of  legal  standards  governing  claims  of  immunity  in  every 
civil action against a foreign state.”  Id., at 488. 

To  that  end,  the  FSIA  codifies  a  baseline  principle  of
immunity for foreign states and their instrumentalities.  28 
U. S. C. §1604.  The FSIA then sets out exceptions to that 
for 
principle—including, 
commercial activities.  §§1605–1607. 

for  example,  the  exception 

The  FSIA  defines  a  “foreign  state”  to  encompass
instrumentalities of a foreign state—including entities that 
are  directly  and  majority-owned  by  a  foreign  state. 
§§1603(a)–(b); Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson, 538 U. S. 468, 
473–474 (2003).  (In this case, the United States does not 
contest  Halkbank’s  status  as  an  instrumentality  of  a