Source: http://openjurist.org/181/f3d/118/creighton-limited-v-government-of-the-state-of-qatar
Timestamp: 2013-06-19 18:24:21
Document Index: 407274805

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1604', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605', '§ 1605']

181 F3d 118 Creighton Limited, v. Government of the State of Qatar, | OpenJurist
181 F. 3d 118 - Creighton Limited, v. Government of the State of Qatar,	Home181 f3d 118 creighton limited, v. government of the state of qatar,
181 F3d 118 Creighton Limited, v. Government of the State of Qatar, 181 F.3d 118 (D.C. Cir. 1999)
Creighton Limited, Appellantv.Government of the State of Qatar, Appellee
Argued December 7, 1998Decided July 2, 1999
Creighton claims that by agreeing to arbitrate in France Qatar impliedly waived both its sovereign immunity, thereby conferring subject matter jurisdiction upon the court, see id. § 1605(a)(1) & (6), and its due process objection, thereby conferring personal jurisdiction upon the court. Alternatively, Creighton claims that Qatar's agreement to arbitrate in France confers subject matter jurisdiction, see id. § 1605(a)(6), and its contacts with the United States are sufficient to satisfy the constitutional requirements of personal jurisdiction. Although we hold below (in Part II.A.2.b) that the court has subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to § 1605(a)(6), we find it necessary also to discuss § 1605(a)(1) because one of Creighton's due process arguments (see Part II.B.1) presupposes that Qatar, by agreeing to arbitrate in France, waived its immunity pursuant to § 1605(a)(1). We cannot resolve that due process argument without addressing the claim about § 1605(a)(1) upon which it is predicated.
2.Sovereign Immunity
The FSIA is "the sole basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state in our courts." Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 434 (1989). A foreign state is "presumptively immune from the jurisdiction of United States courts," Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349, 355 (1993), that is, the state is immune unless the particular lawsuit comes within an exception in the FSIA. See 28 U.S.C. § 1604. Creighton claims that the exceptions for an implied waiver and for arbitration, see id. § 1605(a)(1), (6), apply to this case.
Id. § 1605(a)(1). Creighton claims that Qatar, by agreeing to arbitrate in France, implicitly waived its sovereign immunity in the United States for, by virtue of the New York Convention, Qatar was "on notice" that an arbitral award rendered in France would be enforceable in this country. Qatar responds that "the FSIA and decisions applying it make clear that a sovereign's agreement to arbitrate in a New York Convention state is not a waiver of immunity to suit in the U.S. unless the foreign sovereign is also party to the New York Convention."
The FSIA does not define an implied waiver. We have, however, followed the "virtually unanimous" precedents construing the implied waiver provision narrowly. Shapiro v. Republic of Bolivia, 930 F.2d 1013, 1017 (2d Cir. 1991). In particular, we have held that implicit in § 1605(a)(1) is the requirement that the foreign state have intended to waive its sovereign immunity. See Princz v. Federal Republic of Germany, 26 F.3d 1166, 1174 (1994) ("[A]n implied waiver depends upon the foreign government's having at some point indicated its amenability to suit"); Foremost-McKesson, Inc. v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 905 F.2d 438, 444 (D.C. Cir. 1990) ("courts rarely find that a nation has waived its sovereign immunity ... without strong evidence that this is what the foreign state intended").
[I]f the language of the legislative history [were] applied literally, a foreign government would be subject to the United States's jurisdiction simply because it agreed to have the contract governed by another country's laws, or agreed to arbitrate in a country other than itself, even though the agreement made no reference to the United States. Such an interpretation of § 1605(a)(1)'s "implicit waiver" exception would vastly increase the jurisdiction of the federal courts over matters involving sensitive foreign relations.
See transport Wiking Trader v. Navimpex Centrala, 989 F.2d 572, 577 (2d Cir. 1993); see also Frolova v. Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, 761 F.2d 370, 377 (7th Cir. 1985) ("[M]ost courts have refused to find an implicit waiver of immunity to suit in American courts from a contract clause providing for arbitration in a country other than the United States");Maritime Int'l Nominees Estab. v. Republic of Guinea, 693 F.2d 1094, 1102 n.13 (D.C. Cir. 1982) (courts "have generally assumed ... that Congress did not endorse the literal wording of the House Report"). Indeed, the intentionality "requirement is also reflected in the examples of implied waiver set forth in the legislative history of § 1605(a)(1), all of which arise either from the foreign state's agreement (to arbitration or to a particular choice of law) or from its filing a responsive pleading without raising the defense of sovereign immunity."Princz, 26 F.3d at 1174; see also Shapiro, 930 F.2d at 1017 (explaining that legislative history lists examples of implicit waiver "in which the waiver was unmistakable, and courts have been reluctant to find an implied waiver where the circumstances were not similarly unambiguous"); Maritime Int'l, 693 F.2d at 1103 ("A key reason why pre-FSIA cases [referred to in the legislative history] found that an agreement to arbitrate in the United States waived immunity from suit was that such agreements could only be effective if deemed to contemplate a role for United States courts").
The Supreme Court has also read § 1605(a)(1) to require an intention to waive immunity in the United States, though concededly upon facts rather different from those present here. Argentina was sued in the United States for allegedly sinking a Liberian tanker owned by U.S. interests during the war between Great Britain and Argentina over the Falkland Islands. Although Argentina had signed international treaties setting forth substantive rules of conduct and stating that compensation would be paid for certain wrongs, the Court held "we [do not] see how a foreign state can waive its immunity under § 1605(a)(1) by signing an international agreement that contains no mention of a waiver of immunity to suit in United States courts or even the availability of a cause of action in the United States." Argentine Republic, 488 U.S. at 442-43.
Qatar not having signed the Convention, we do not think that its agreement to arbitrate in a signatory country, without more, demonstrates the requisite intent to waive its sovereign immunity in the United States. As Creighton directs us to no other evidence of such an intent, we hold that § 1605(a)(1) does not confer subject matter jurisdiction upon the district court.
28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(6). Qatar does not contest Creighton's assertion that because the New York Convention calls for enforcement of any arbitral award rendered within the jurisdiction of a signatory country, the quoted exception applies by its terms to this action. Indeed, it has been said with authority that the New York Convention "is exactly the sort of treaty Congress intended to include in the arbitration exception." Cargill Int'l S.A. v. M/T Pavel Dybenko, 991 F.2d 1012, 1018 (2d Cir. 1993); see also Chromalloy Aeroservices v. Arab Republic of Egypt, 939 F. Supp. 907, 909 (D.D.C. 1996).
regularly applie[s] intervening statutes conferring or ousting jurisdiction, whether or not jurisdiction lay when the underlying conduct occurred or when the suit was filed. ... Application of a new jurisdictional rule usual-ly takes away no substantive right but simply changes the tribunal that is to hear the case. Present law normally governs in such situations because jurisdictional statutes speak to the power of the court rather than to the rights or obligations of the parties.
Landgraf v. USI Film Prods., 511 U.S. 244, 274 (1994). So it is in this case, for § 1605(a)(6) does not affect the contractual right of the parties to arbitration but only the tribunal that may hear a dispute concerning the enforcement of an arbitral award. See McGee v. International Life Ins. Co., 355 U.S. 220, 224 (1957) (holding long-arm statute enacted after parties entered into contract "did nothing more than to provide petitioner with a California forum to enforce whatever substantive rights she might have against respondent"). Under established principles, therefore, application of § 1605(a)(6) is not retroactive, let alone impermissibly retroactive, and Qatar does not claim that a different result should obtain simply because a foreign state is affected by the change in a jurisdictional statute. See Princz, 26 F.3d at 1171 (postulating, though not deciding, that application of 1976 version of FSIA to acts committed before 1952 would not be retroactive because it "would not alter Germany's liability under the applicable substantive law in force at the time, i.e. it would just remove the bar of sovereign immunity to the plaintiff's vindicating his rights under that law"). Accordingly, we hold that the district court has subject matter jurisdiction over this case pursuant to the arbitration exception in § 1605(a)(6).
1.Waiver
The requirements of minimum jurisdictional contacts and adequate notice are embodied in the provision [namely,28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(1)-(5)]. Cf. International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310 (1945), and McGee v. International Life Insurance Co., 355 U.S. 220, 223 (1957). ...Significantly, each of the immunity provisions in the bill... requires some connection between the lawsuit and the United States, or an express or implied waiver by the foreign state of its immunity from jurisdiction. These immunity provisions, therefore, prescribe the necessary contacts which must exist before our courts can exercise personal jurisdiction.
H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 13, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. at 6612. Creighton reasons that because Qatar impliedly waived its sovereign immunity under § 1605(a)(1), and alternatively because subject matter jurisdiction is proper under what it terms the "arbitral waiver" provision of § 1605(a)(6), Qatar has necessarily waived its objection to personal jurisdiction. The predicate for the first of these arguments we rejected when we held (in Part II.A.2.a) that Qatar did not impliedly waive its sovereign immunity under § 1605(a)(1).We now consider the second argument.
The House Report upon which Creighton relies accompanied the original 1976 legislation. As noted above, § 1605(a)(6) was added to the FSIA only in 1988. The 1976 legislative history, whatever it might be worth as a guide to the original Act, has little if any bearing upon the later amendment. Cf. Rein v. Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, 162 F.3d 748, 761 (2d Cir. 1998) ("The elements of § 1605(a)(7) [enacted in 1996], unlike those of the commercial activities exception [in § 1605(a)(2), which was enacted in 1976], do not entail any finding of minimum contacts").
In any event, Creighton's argument proceeds from a mistaken premise, for unlike § 1605(a)(1), § 1605(a)(6) deals not with waiver but with forfeiture. Cf. United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 733 (1993) ("Waiver is different from forfeiture. Whereas forfeiture is the failure to make the timely assertion of a right, waiver is the intentional relinquishment or abandonment of a known right"). Section 1605(a)(6) reflects the decision of the Congress to deny a foreign state immunity from suit in the United States if that state has agreed to arbitrate in any country that is party to a treaty (such as the New York Convention) calling for the enforcement of an arbitral award. Unlike subsection (a)(1), subsection (a)(6) contains no intentionality requirement. Therefore, although subsection (a)(6) confers subject matter jurisdiction upon the court, it does not follow that Qatar waived its objection to personal jurisdiction.
Although we have held that Qatar did not, by agreeing to arbitrate in France, waive its sovereign immunity under § 1605(a)(1), it is conceivable (though as we shall see, unlikely) that a different conclusion could follow with regard to whether Qatar waived its objection to personal jurisdiction under the due process clause. Creighton, however, has not cited, nor are we aware of, any authority for the proposition that an agreement to arbitrate in one forum constitutes a waiver of the right to challenge personal jurisdiction in another. On the contrary, the decisions of which we are aware have held that an implicit waiver of personal jurisdiction in a defendant's agreement to litigate or to arbitrate in a particular jurisdiction is applicable only within that jurisdiction. See Victory Transport Inc. v. Comisaria General de Abastecimientosy Transportes, 336 F.2d 354, 363 (2d Cir. 1964) ("By agreeing to arbitrate in New York, where the United States Arbitration Act makes such agreements specifically enforceable, the [government of Spain] must be deemed to have consented to the jurisdiction of the court that could compel the arbitration proceeding in New York. To hold otherwise would be to render the arbitration clause a nullity"); Microfibres, Inc. v. McDevitt-Askew, 20 F. Supp. 2d 316, 322 (D.R.I. 1998) (holding agreement to litigate contractual disputes in Rhode Island implicitly waived right to challenge personal jurisdiction there); Inso Corp. v. Dekotec Handelsges, 999 F. Supp. 165, 167 (D. Mass. 1998) (holding "contractual stipulation to a particular forum implies consent to personal jurisdiction in that forum").
Overall, it seems Qatar's contacts with Creighton in Tennessee were necessitated by Creighton's decision to base itself there, and are not instances of Qatar purposefully availing itself of the benefits of the laws of Tennessee or of the United States. See id. at 475 ("Th[e] purposeful availment requirement ensures that a defendant will not be haled into a jurisdiction solely as a result of random, fortuitous, or attenuated contacts, or of the unilateral activity of another party or a third person"). As we explained in an analogous-indeed, controlling--case, Creighton
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