Opinion ID: 795095
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The FSIA Immunity From Execution Against Property

Text: 23 The FSIA sets forth the sole and exclusive standards used by courts in the United States to resolve sovereign immunity issues. Walker Int'l Holdings, Ltd. v. Republic of Congo ( Walker Int'l II ) 415 F.3d 413, 416 (5th Cir.2005). [A] claim of sovereign immunity . . . merely raises a jurisdictional defense. Republic of Austria v. Altmann, 541 U.S. 677, 700, 124 S.Ct. 2240, 159 L.Ed.2d 1 (2004). The sovereign immunity claim may be raised by a garnishee as well as by a foreign sovereign. See Walker Int'l I, 395 F.3d at 233 (finding [no] authority for the proposition that it is the sovereign's exclusive right to raise the issue of sovereign immunity under the FSIA, and concluding that 28 U.S.C. § 1610(a) . . . [does not] give[] the sovereign exclusive standing to raise the waiver element). The district court's denial of immunity under the FSIA is immediately appealable under the collateral order doctrine. See Byrd v. Corporación Forestal y Indust. De Olancho, S.A., 182 F.3d 380, 385 (5th Cir.1999); Stena, 923 F.2d at 385. 24 The general rule under the FSIA is that property of a foreign sovereign is immune from attachment and execution. 28 U.S.C. § 1609 (2000 ed. & Supp. III); Atwood Turnkey Drilling, Inc. v. Petroleo Brasileiro, S.A., 875 F.2d 1174, 1176-77 (5th Cir.1989). The exceptions to the general rule of immunity are central to the FSIA's functioning. Republic of Austria, 541 U.S. at 691, 124 S.Ct. 2240. At the threshold of every district court action against a foreign state, the court must satisfy itself that one of the exceptions applies [because its] subject-matter jurisdiction . . . depends on that application. Id. (alteration and internal quotation marks omitted). One of the exceptions is § 1610(a)(1): 25 The property in the United States of a foreign state, as defined in section 1603(a) of this chapter, used for a commercial activity in the United States, shall not be immune from attachment in aid of execution, or from execution, upon a judgment entered by a court of the United States or of a State after the effective date of this Act, if . . . the foreign state has waived its immunity from attachment in aid of execution or from execution either explicitly or by implication. . . . 26 28 U.S.C. § 1610 (2000 ed. & Supp. III) (emphasis added); Atwood, 875 F.2d at 1176-77. This section simply determines whether property belonging to a foreign sovereign is immune from execution by a state or federal court in the United States; it does not provide a cause of action for execution against such property. See Conn. Bank of Commerce v. Republic of Congo ( Af-Cap I ), 309 F.3d 240, 247 (5th Cir.2002) 2 (noting that the FSIA provides foreign sovereigns with immunity from execution against their property to satisfy an adverse judgment); Walker Int'l II, 415 F.3d at 416 ([T]he FSIA does not create an independent cause of action. . . . [Instead, i]t simply provides a defense to claims raised against a sovereign, and a federal forum for the resolution of such claims. (citation omitted)); First Nat'l City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611, 620, 103 S.Ct. 2591, 77 L.Ed.2d 46 (1983) ([The FSIA] was not intended to affect substantive law determining the liability of a foreign state.). 27 Under § 1610(a), even when the foreign sovereign has waived its immunity from execution, courts in the United States may execute only against property in the United States that is used for commercial activity in the United States. Af-Cap I, 309 F.3d at 247, 251 (quoting 28 U.S.C. § 1610(a)). In Af-Cap I and Af-Cap II, we assumed without deciding that, for purposes of determining the § 1610(a) in the United States requirement, the obligations to pay royalties to the Congo were intangible debt obligations. See discussion infra Part II.C.2. 28 [Intangible] rights are but relationships between persons, natural or corporate, which the law recognizes by attaching to them certain sanctions enforceable in courts. The power of government over them and the protection which it gives them cannot be exerted through control of a physical thing. They can be made effective only through control over and protection afforded to those persons whose relationships are the origin of the rights. 29 Curry v. McCanless, 307 U.S. 357, 365-66, 59 S.Ct. 900, 83 L.Ed. 1339 (1939). To say that `a debt follows the debtor' is simply to say that intangible property has no actual situs, and a debt may be sued on wherever there is jurisdiction over the debtor. Rush v. Savchuk, 444 U.S. 320, 330, 100 S.Ct. 571, 62 L.Ed.2d 516 (1980). In contrast to a suit against the debtor, a garnishment proceeding is operative in personam against the garnishee to prevent him from paying the debt to the garnishment debtor and is operative in rem upon the property of the defendant debtor in the hands of the garnishee. Matter of T.B. Westex Foods, Inc., 950 F.2d 1187, 1192 n. 7 (5th Cir.1992) (internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, garnishment is a quasi in rem action in which the plaintiff seeks to apply what he concedes to be the property of the defendant to the satisfaction of a claim against him. Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 199 n. 17, 212 n. 38, 97 S.Ct. 2569, 53 L.Ed.2d 683 (1977) (internal quotation marks omitted).