Opinion ID: 2745034
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Theory of Liability Asserted

Text: Plaintiffs here bring claims under both an aiding and abetting and a conspiracy theory of liability. We have held that “in this Circuit, a plaintiff may plead a theory of aiding and abetting liability under the AT[S],” Khulumani, 504 F.3d at 260, and accordingly, plaintiffs have pleaded a theory of liability over which we have subject matter jurisdiction. Plaintiffs also allege causes of action for torture; extrajudicial killing; forced 7 disappearances of persons; and cruel, inhuman, and/or degrading treatment and/or punishment. Were these the only causes of action alleged, we would remand to the District Court for a determination in the first instance of whether they constitute violations of customary international law. However, because plaintiffs have pleaded three causes of action that unquestionably allege violations of customary international law—war crimes, genocide, and other crimes against humanity—they have satisfied this jurisdictional predicate. As we ultimately conclude that the claim is barred as a jurisdictional matter by the presumption against extraterritoriality, see Section II.C.5, post, we need not remand this question to the District Court. Accordingly, we intimate no view on whether these in fact are violations of the law of nations, nor on other corollary questions that would need be answered in order to make such a determination, including whether the TVPA, enacted in 1991, now provides the sole means by which plaintiffs can bring claims based upon torture and extrajudicial killing. See Enahoro v. Abubakar, 408 F.3d 877, 884‐85 (7th Cir. 2005) (concluding that in enacting the TVPA, Congress established it as the sole means through which a plaintiff could allege claims for extrajudicial killing and torture, because “[i]f it did not, it would be meaningless. No one would plead a cause of action under the TVPA and subject himself to its requirements if he could simply plead under” the ATS); cf. Filartiga, 630 F.2d at 880 (holding, well before the TVPA was passed, that “an act of torture committed by a state official against one held in detention violates established norms of the international law of human rights, and hence the law of nations”). 19 No. 10‐5258‐cv Whether there is conspiracy liability under customary international law and hence under the ATS remains an open question in this Circuit. See Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d at 260 (assuming without deciding that a conspiracy theory in the form of a “joint criminal enterprise” is cognizable under the ATS). Because we ultimately dispose of these claims on jurisdictional grounds other than whether conspiracy liability is available under the ATS, see Section II.C.5, post, we need not address that question here. C. Displacing the Presumption Against Extraterritoriality Having held that the complaint alleges violations of the law of nations, we now turn to the question of whether the presumption against the extraterritorial application of statutes bars plaintiffs’ action.
The Supreme Court’s opinion in Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. 1659, significantly clarified the jurisdictional grant of the ATS with respect to extraterritoriality, and we therefore begin our jurisdictional analysis with an examination of that case. The Supreme Court concluded in Kiobel that “[t]he principles underlying the presumption against extraterritoriality . . . constrain courts exercising their power under the ATS.” 133 S. Ct. at 1665. The Court reached this conclusion after examining the statutory text and historical setting of the ATS’s passage, seeking evidence of congressional intent that it apply extraterritorially, id. at 1665‐69, but determining that “there is no clear indication of extraterritoriality 20 No. 10‐5258‐cv here,” id. (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). Accordingly, the Court held that the ATS could not form the basis for jurisdiction of U.S. courts over acts occurring entirely beyond the territory of the United States. Id. At the end of its opinion, the Supreme Court held that, in the specific case before it, the ATS could not confer federal jurisdiction over plaintiff’s claims because “all the relevant conduct took place outside the United States.” Id. at 1669. Then, in language that has become the subject of interest by scholars and lower courts, the Court appeared to leave open a window for ATS actions that are based in part on extraterritorial conduct. The Court added: And even where the claims touch and concern the territory of the United States, they must do so with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application. See Morrison, 561 U.S. [247], 130 S. Ct. [2869,] 2883–2888. Corporations are often present in many countries, and it would reach too far to say that mere corporate presence suffices. Id. at 1669. An evaluation of the presumption’s application to a particular case is essentially an inquiry into whether the domestic contacts are sufficient to avoid triggering the presumption at all. The presumption was not “displaced” in Kiobel because all of the relevant conduct alleged in that suit took place outside of U.S. territory. Yet, as the Supreme Court had previously recognized, it will often be the case that “th[e] presumption . . . is not self‐ 21 No. 10‐5258‐cv evidently dispositive, but its application requires further analysis.” Morrison, 561 U.S. at 266. As the Court noted in Morrison, “it is a rare case of prohibited extraterritorial application that lacks all contact with the territory of the United States.” Id. Indeed, in the instant action, the complaint includes some “contact” between the injuries alleged and the territory of the United States. Although the depredations of the Saddam Hussein regime undeniably occurred outside of the United States, plaintiffs argue that the abuses they allegedly suffered at the hands of the Saddam Hussein regime “flow from financial transactions within the territory of the United States.” Appellants’ Ltr. Br. 4. In particular, plaintiffs point to the following allegations: (1) the OFP was created, administered, and its contracts approved by the United Nations in New York City, where the United Nations headquarters is located; (2) Chevron is headquartered in the United States, which means that many decisions related to the alleged violations of the OFP were “necessarily made by the top stake holders at Chevron in the United States”; (3) Chevron engaged in transactions with other U.S. companies involving the OFP oil and illicit surcharges, and its “profits reaped from the transactions were recouped in the United States”; and (4) BNP entered into a Banking Agreement with the United Nations in New York pursuant to which it maintained an 22 No. 10‐5258‐cv escrow account in New York City through which all OFP funds moved, including the illicit surcharge payments. Id. at 4‐5.8 In light of the “connections” to U.S. territory asserted in the complaint, the presumption against extraterritorial application is not “self‐evidently dispositive” here, as it was in Kiobel, and our jurisdictional inquiry requires the “further analysis” envisaged in Morrison. What type of further analysis is required, and what facts are relevant to determining whether a claim sufficiently “touches and concerns” the United States so as to displace the presumption against extraterritorial application in the context of the ATS is a question of first impression for our Court. However, we draw considerable guidance from the teachings of the Supreme Court in several cases, in particular, from Morrison.9 Whether conduct occurring within the United Nations Headquarters in New 8 York City constitutes domestic or extraterritorial conduct for purposes of our jurisdictional inquiry is a novel question. Pursuant to the relevant agreement between the United States and United Nations, the United Nations “headquarters district,” including the Headquarters building, has been afforded a unique status. See Agreement Between the United Nations and the United States of America Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations, reprinted at 22 U.S.C. § 287 historical note (“U.N. Headquarters Agreement”). Nonetheless, conduct occurring within the headquarters district is subject to the same jurisdictional analysis as if such conduct occurred anywhere else in New York City. We so conclude based upon the agreement’s provision that “the federal, state and local courts of the United States shall have jurisdiction over acts done and transactions taking place in the headquarters district as provided in applicable federal, state and local laws.” U.N. Headquarters Agreement § 7(c). Therefore, conduct that occurred within the United Nations Headquarters will be treated as domestic conduct for purposes of the jurisdictional analysis under the ATS. At the outset of our analysis, we acknowledge (as did the Supreme Court in 9 Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1664) that the presumption against the extraterritoriality of statutes has typically been applied to substantive statutes that regulate conduct, rather than 23 No. 10‐5258‐cv
To determine how to undertake the extraterritoriality analysis where plaintiffs allege some “connections” to the United States, we first look to the Court’s opinion in Morrison, in which the Court actually engaged in the required “further analysis” with respect to § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the “Exchange Act”). After determining that the presumption against extraterritorial effect of statutes applied to the Exchange Act, the Court then sought to determine which “territorial event[s]” or “relationship[s]” were the “focus” of the Exchange Act. Morrison, 561 U.S. at 266. The Court determined that the “focus” of the statute was on “purchases and sales of securities in the United States,” rather than “the place where the deception originated.” Id. Analyzing transactions of securities not registered on domestic exchanges, the Court again noted that “it is the foreign location of the transaction that establishes (or reflects the presumption of) the Act’s inapplicability.” Id. at 268. In light of Congress’s focus on domestic transactions, the Court categorically limited the territorial reach of the statute by establishing that § 10(b) purely jurisdictional statutes, such as the ATS. See, e.g., Morrison, 561 U.S. at 273 (holding that the presumption against extraterritoriality applied to section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act, precluding claims for misconduct in connection with securities traded on foreign exchanges); Sale v. Haitian Ctrs. Council, Inc., 509 U.S. 155, 159 (1991) (holding that section 243(h) of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 did not apply extraterritorially); Equal Opportunity Emp’t Comm’n v. Arabian Am. Oil Co., 499 U.S. 244, 259 (1991) (holding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not apply extraterritorially). While mindful of the distinction between substantive and jurisdictional statutes, we think the Court’s analysis in the above cases, applying the presumption against extraterritoriality to substantive statutes, is instructive and relevant to the question presented here. 24 No. 10‐5258‐cv applies “only [to] transactions in securities listed on domestic exchanges, and domestic transactions in other securities.” Id. at 267; see id. at 285 (Stevens, J., concurring in the judgment) (characterizing Court’s test as a “bright‐line rule[]”); City of Pontiac, 752 F.3d at 180 (same). Adopting the Supreme Court’s methodology in Morrison, the first step of our inquiry here involves an evaluation of the “territorial event[s]” or “relationship[s]” that were the “focus” of the ATS. Morrison, 561 U.S. at 266. This inquiry again begins with the Supreme Court’s most comprehensive and recent examination of the ATS in Kiobel. There, plaintiffs were Nigerian nationals who accused Dutch, British, and Nigerian corporations of aiding and abetting violations of customary international law by Nigerian military and police forces. Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1662. Plaintiffs claimed that the defendant multi‐national corporations aided and abetted the abuses by “providing the Nigerian forces with food, transportation, and compensation, as well as by allowing the Nigerian military to use respondents’ property as a staging ground for attacks.” Id. at 1662‐ 63. The United States ties alleged were that defendants’ shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange, and that they had a New York City office (owned by an affiliate) that “helps to explain their business to potential investors.” Id. at 1677 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment). Focusing on the fact that “all the relevant conduct took place outside the United States,” the Supreme Court held that the ATS did not extend to plaintiffs’ claims. Id. at 1669. In Balintulo, we explained 25 No. 10‐5258‐cv that the phrase “relevant conduct” in Kiobel referred, at all times and “[i]n all cases,” to the conduct constituting the alleged offenses under the law of nations. Balintulo, 727 F.3d at 189‐90, 192. 10 Indeed, we undertook a careful examination of the Supreme Court’s choice of language in Kiobel, and underscored that, on at least eleven occasions, the Court “framed” its analysis as one “focusing solely on the location of the relevant ‘conduct’ or ‘violation.’” Id. at 189 (quoting Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1665‐69). Accordingly, in conducting our extraterritoriality analysis, we looked solely to the site of the alleged violations of customary international law. Id. at 189‐90.11 We have recently had another occasion to apply the Supreme Court’s Kiobel 10 holding in Chowdhury, 746 F.3d 42, where we determined that, because all of the conduct set forth in plaintiff’s complaint occurred in Bangladesh, his claims brought under the ATS were not cognizable. Id. at 49‐50. After determining that the ATS does not apply extraterritorially, the Supreme 11 Court in Kiobel had no need to decide what allegations would be sufficient to displace the presumption, because the Kiobel plaintiffs did not allege any conduct that took place in the United States. However, in his concurring opinion in Kiobel, Justice Alito did explicitly apply the Morrison “focus” analysis to the ATS. In doing so, he noted that, pursuant to the Supreme Court’s opinion in Sosa, 542 U.S. 692, “when the ATS was enacted, congressional concern was focus[ed] on the three principal offenses against the law of nations that had been identified by Blackstone: violation of safe conducts, infringement of the rights of ambassadors, and piracy.” 133 S. Ct. at 1670 (Alito, J., concurring) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). He thus concluded that “a putative ATS cause of action will fall within the scope of the presumption against extraterritoriality— and will therefore be barred—unless the domestic conduct is sufficient to violate an international law norm that satisfies Sosa’s requirements of definiteness and acceptance among civilized nations.” Id. We agree that a defendant’s domestic conduct must be the focal point of our inquiry. This reflects the perspective of the majority opinion of the Chief Justice in Kiobel 26 No. 10‐5258‐cv We then applied this ATS “focus” analysis—examining the conduct alleged to constitute violations of the law of nations, and the location of that conduct—to the facts of Balintulo itself. There, the conduct at issue was the sale, by subsidiaries of the defendant corporations, of cars and computers to the apartheid government of South Africa, which allegedly aided and abetted that regime’s violations of customary international law. Id. at 182‐83. Of particular relevance to the instant case, the Balintulo plaintiffs predicated their claim on an assertion that defendants “took affirmative steps in this country to circumvent the sanctions regime” against South Africa. Id. at 192. We rejected the Balintulo plaintiffs’ arguments, holding that their allegations were insufficient to displace the presumption. We reasoned that defendants’ alleged domestic conduct lacked a clear link to the human rights abuses occurring in South Africa that were at the heart of plaintiffs’ action. Id. (stating that none of plaintiffs’ allegations “ties the relevant human rights violations to actions taken within the United States”). We thus concluded that the alleged violations were “based solely on conduct occurring abroad,” and and its repeated emphasis on “the location of the relevant ‘conduct’ or ‘violation.’” Balintulo, 727 F.3d at 189. Accordingly, the site of the alleged violation should be the central inquiry for lower courts asked to apply the Kiobel presumption to facts allegedly sufficient to overcome it. 27 No. 10‐5258‐cv hence were not cognizable in U.S. courts under the teachings of the Supreme Court in Kiobel. Id. at 182.12
Extraterritoriality Under the ATS Drawing upon the guidance provided by the Supreme Court in Morrison and Kiobel, and by this Court in Balintulo, a clear principle emerges for conducting the extraterritoriality‐related jurisdictional analysis required by the ATS: that the “focus” of the ATS is on conduct and on the location of that conduct. Thus, in determining whether the ATS confers on a federal court jurisdiction over a particular case, a district court must isolate the “relevant conduct” in a complaint. That conduct is the conduct of the defendant which is alleged by plaintiff to be either a direct violation of the law of nations or, as we recognized in Presbyterian Church, 582 F.3d at 259, conduct that constitutes aiding and abetting another’s violation of the law of nations. In determining whether this conduct displaces the presumption, the district court must engage in a two‐ step jurisdictional analysis of this conduct. In Balintulo, we denied defendants’ request that we issue a writ of mandamus 12 ordering the District Court to dismiss all claims against them. We denied that request because we held that, in light of the Kiobel presumption, recognized by the Supreme Court while the Balintulo appeal was pending, “the defendants w[ould] be able to obtain their desired relief (dismissal of all claims) in the District Court through a motion for judgment on the pleadings, without resort to a writ of mandamus.” Balintulo, 727 F.3d at 182. As described above, our decision to deny the extraordinary writ of mandamus was based on the holding that the plaintiffs’ alleged “violations of customary international law based solely on conduct occurring abroad” were not cognizable in U.S. courts under the ATS. Id. 28 No. 10‐5258‐cv The first step is to determine whether the “relevant” conduct—conduct which constitutes a violation of the law of nations or aiding and abetting such a violation—sufficiently “touches and concerns” the territory of the United States so as to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality. Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1669. The second step is to make a preliminary determination that the relevant conduct—which the court has determined sufficiently “touches and concerns” the United States so as to displace the presumption—may in fact be relied upon in establishing jurisdiction. This is done through a preliminary determination that the complaint adequately states a claim that the defendant violated the law of nations or aided and abetted another’s violation of the law of nations. As with all allegations contained in a complaint, the pleaded conduct must be “plausibl[e],” and allow the court “to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct,” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 679, and must—at least upon an initial examination by the district judge—appear to satisfy the standard for alleging a violation of the law of nations or aiding and abetting such a violation. This initial “glimpse” at what is ordinarily a merits determination is necessary due to the unique character of the ATS as a jurisdictional statute that derives substantive meaning from customary international law. Thus, jurisdiction can only properly be asserted over conduct that is in fact a violation of customary international law or aiding and abetting a violation. By “glimpsing” at the merits at the jurisdictional stage, the district court ensures that the conduct 29 No. 10‐5258‐cv alleged in a complaint may properly be relied upon by the court in conducting its extraterritoriality analysis. Where a complaint alleges domestic conduct of the defendant (that, the court determines, displaces the presumption against extraterritoriality), but such conduct does not satisfy even a preliminary assessment of the merits, the court may not rely on that conduct for its extraterritoriality analysis. In such a circumstance, the complaint does not only fail on the merits, but must also fail as a jurisdictional matter, because where the conduct alleged does not state a claim under customary international law, it cannot form the basis of a court’s jurisdiction. See Kadic, 70 F.3d at 238 (“Because the Alien Tort Act requires that plaintiffs plead ‘a violation of the law of nations’ at the jurisdictional threshold, this statute requires a more searching review of the merits to establish jurisdiction . . . . There is no federal subject‐matter jurisdiction under the Alien Tort Act unless the complaint adequately pleads a violation of the law of nations.”) (citing Filartiga, 630 F.2d at 887‐88). This second step of the extraterritoriality analysis ensures, as Justice Breyer stated in his Kiobel concurring opinion, that “the statuteʹs jurisdictional reach [will] match the statuteʹs underlying substantive grasp.” Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1673 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment).13 We observe that Justice Breyer’s opinion explicitly regarded the extraterritoriality 13 analysis required by the majority opinion in Kiobel to be jurisdictional in nature, a conclusion that triggered no protest from the majority. Id. at 1673 (Breyer, J., concurring in the judgment). This approach is consistent with our understanding of the ATS as a “strictly jurisdictional” creature. Sosa, 542 U.S. at 713. Accordingly, the general presumption that a limitation on a statute’s coverage will be treated as nonjurisdictional 30 No. 10‐5258‐cv Finally, we note that although a district court might deny a motion to dismiss brought pursuant to Rule 12(b)(1) if it concludes that the complaint passes jurisdictional muster, that does not obviate the district court’s continuing obligation to ensure its own jurisdiction as the case proceeds to discovery. If subsequent materials in the record cast sufficient doubt upon the allegations in the complaint that formed the basis for the court’s subject‐matter jurisdiction, the court must revisit the question of its jurisdiction sua sponte, or upon a party’s motion. See, e.g., Grupo Dataflux v. Atlas Global Grp., L.P., 541 U.S. 567, 593 (2004) (“[I]t is the obligation of both district court and counsel to be alert to jurisdictional requirements.”); Transatlantic Marine Claims Agency, Inc. v. Ace Shipping Corp., Div. of Ace Young Inc., 109 F.3d 105, 107 (2d Cir. 1997) (“The failure of the parties to contest the district court’s authority to hear a case does not act to confer federal jurisdiction since a challenge to subject matter jurisdiction cannot be waived and may be raised either by motion or sua sponte at any time.”) (internal quotation marks, ellipses, and brackets omitted).
As we have explained above, in order to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality and establish federal subject matter jurisdiction over an ATS claim, the complaint must plead: (1) conduct of the defendant that “touch[ed] and unless Congress clearly states otherwise, see Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp., 546 U.S. 500, 515‐16 (2006), is not applicable in the context of the ATS. 31 No. 10‐5258‐cv concern[ed]” the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality, and (2) that the same conduct, upon preliminary examination, states a claim for a violation of the law of nations or aiding and abetting another’s violation of the law of nations. In evaluating the “relevant” conduct, we are mindful of the Supreme Court’s emphasis on the potential foreign policy implications of the ATS. See Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1664‐65. In all cases applying the presumption against extraterritoriality to statutes, courts must be careful to recall the relevance of this canon—namely, “to protect against unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord.” Equal Opportunity Emp’t Comm’n v. Arabian Am. Oil Co. (“ARAMCO”), 499 U.S. 244, 248 (1991); see also Parkcentral Global Hub Ltd. v. Porsche Auto. Holdings SE, 763 F.3d 198, 216 (2d Cir. 2014) (holding a claim brought under § 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act barred as extraterritorial because “the application of § 10(b) to the defendants would so obviously implicate the incompatibility of U.S. and foreign laws that Congress could not have intended it sub silentio”). This core purpose of the presumption is even more pronounced here: “[T]he danger of unwarranted judicial interference in the conduct of foreign policy is magnified in the context of the ATS, because the question is not what Congress has done but instead what courts may do.” Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1664. Describing the dangers inherent when courts impinge on the role of the executive and legislative branches in 32 No. 10‐5258‐cv managing foreign policy, the Court explained, “[t]hese concerns, which are implicated in any case arising under the ATS, are all the more pressing when the question is whether a cause of action under the ATS reaches conduct within the territory of another sovereign.” Id. at 1665. Thus, as instructed by the Supreme Court, the lower federal courts must proceed with caution when determining whether a particular case alleges conduct that is sufficiently “domestic,” such that the presumption is “displaced” (i.e., does not apply). Furthermore, in identifying the conduct which must form the basis of the violation and the jurisdictional analysis under the ATS, precedents make clear that neither the U.S. citizenship of defendants, nor their presence in the United States, is of relevance for jurisdictional purposes. First, in Kiobel the Court explicitly stated that “mere corporate presence” in the United States would be insufficient to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality. 133 S. Ct. at 1669. And in Balintulo, we described a defendant’s citizenship as “an irrelevant factual distinction,” and expressly rejected plaintiff’s contention that “corporate citizenship [of a defendant] in the United States is enough” to displace the presumption. 727 F.3d at 189‐90. And indeed, in another case in which the Supreme Court assessed the extraterritorial effect of a statute, the fact that the defendant corporations were American did not render defendant’s overseas activities sufficiently domestic. See ARAMCO, 499 U.S. at 247 (holding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not apply 33 No. 10‐5258‐cv extraterritorially to a Delaware corporation’s treatment of its U.S. citizen employee in Saudi Arabia). Recently, the Eleventh Circuit reached the same conclusion. In Cardona v. Chiquita Brands Int’l, Inc., the Court of Appeals rejected plaintiffs’ “attempt to anchor ATS jurisdiction in the nature of the defendants as United States corporations.” 760 F.3d at 1189. In discarding this argument, the Court of Appeals quoted the Supreme Court’s directive in Kiobel that “mere corporate presence” does not suffice to displace the presumption, and it identified no significant distinction between corporate presence and citizenship for purposes of analyzing domestic connections. Id. (quoting Kiobel, 133 S. Ct. at 1669). Other courts have considered a defendant’s U.S. citizenship as one germane factor among numerous factors that, when viewed together, sufficiently “touch and concern” the United States so as to confer jurisdiction on the federal courts over a case. In Al Shimari v. CACI Premier Technology Inc., 758 F.3d 516 (4th Cir. 2014), the Fourth Circuit held that ATS claims related to alleged torture of plaintiffs that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, at the hands of interrogators employed by the defendant corporation, sufficiently “touched and concerned” the United States. Id. at 530. The Court of Appeals reached this conclusion based upon the combination of numerous domestic contacts, including: defendant’s status as a U.S. corporation; the U.S. citizenship of defendant’s employees, “upon whose conduct the ATS claims are based”; defendant’s status as a contractor of the U.S. government; and allegations of domestic 34 No. 10‐5258‐cv conduct by defendants in approving, encouraging, and covering up the alleged torture.14 Id. at 530‐31. We disagree with the contention that a defendant’s U.S. citizenship has any relevance to the jurisdictional analysis. The Supreme Court made clear in Kiobel that the full “focus” of the ATS was on conduct. See Balintulo, 727 F.3d at 190‐91 & n.24. Whether a complaint passes jurisdictional muster accordingly depends upon alleged conduct by anyone—U.S. citizen or not—that took place in the United States and aided and abetted a violation of the law of nations. A complaint cannot be “saved” for jurisdictional purposes simply because a U.S. citizen happened to commit the alleged violation; similarly, our jurisdiction over actions taken within the United States is not less clear where they are actions of a foreign Some district courts have similarly considered a defendant’s U.S. citizenship as 14 one pertinent factor among others, including the defendant’s conduct. In Sexual Minorities Uganda v. Lively, 960 F. Supp. 2d 304 (D. Mass. 2013), the court held that the presumption against extraterritoriality was displaced by distinguishing the case from Kiobel in two ways: (1) because “[d]efendant is an American citizen residing within . . . Massachusetts” and (2) because “the tortious acts committed by [d]efendant took place to a substantial degree within the United States,” including “planning and managing a campaign of repression in Uganda from the United States.” Id. at 321‐22. The court likened defendant’s U.S.‐based conduct to “a terrorist designing and manufacturing a bomb in this country,” which he then detonates overseas. Id. at 322. As explained above, we would look only to defendant’s conduct in the United States, but not to his citizenship in determining our jurisdiction. See also Du Daobin v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 2 F. Supp. 3d 717, 728 (D. Md. 2014) (assuming, without deciding, that the presumption against extraterritoriality was displaced in an ATS case because: (1) defendant was an American, rather than foreign, corporation, and (2) “developmental actions relevant to the [alleged law of nations violation] took place predominantly, if not entirely, within the United States,” and “defendant . . . has taken certain actions within the United States with respect to products that might be primarily used for violations of the laws of nations”). 35 No. 10‐5258‐cv national rather than a U.S. citizen.15 Cf. Absolute Activist Value Master Fund Ltd. v. Ficeto, 677 F.3d 60, 69 (2d Cir. 2012) (noting, in a case applying the Supreme Court’s Morrison opinion, that in identifying domestic as opposed to extraterritorial transactions, “[a] purchaser’s citizenship or residency does not affect where a transaction occurs; a foreign resident can make a purchase within the United States, and a United States resident can make a purchase outside the United States”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
We now turn to the complaint at hand, looking to see whether the complaint has pleaded: (1) conduct by defendants that “touch[ed] and concern[ed]” the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality, and (2) that the same conduct, upon preliminary examination, states a claim for a In conducting the “touch and concern” jurisdictional analysis, one district 15 court, faced with an ATS claim against Osama bin Laden and al‐Qaeda stemming from the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, looked to both defendants’ U.S.‐based conduct, as well as the intended effect of the conduct in the United States. See Mwani v. Laden, 947 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 2013). There, the court held that the claims at issue sufficiently “touched and concerned” the United States so as to confer the court with ATS jurisdiction, because “[s]urely, if any circumstances were to fit the Court’s framework of ‘touching and concerning the United States with sufficient force,’ it would be a terrorist attack that 1) was plotted in part within the United States, and 2) was directed at a United States Embassy and its employees,” and certified that disposition for immediate review by the D.C. Circuit. Id. Because, in the case before us, plaintiffs do not assert that the Saddam Hussein regime’s alleged violations of the law of nations were directed at, or felt in, the United States, we leave for another day the question of whether and how that fact might affect the jurisdictional analysis. 36 No. 10‐5258‐cv violation of the law of nations or aiding and abetting another’s violation of the law of nations. The conduct alleged in the complaint that plaintiffs contend is sufficient to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality is that: (1) the OFP was created, administered, and its contracts were approved by the United Nations in New York City, where the United Nations headquarters is located; (2) Chevron is headquartered in the United States, which means that many decisions related to the alleged violations of the OFP were “necessarily made by the top stake holders at Chevron in the United States”; (3) Chevron engaged in transactions with other U.S. companies involving the OFP oil and illicit surcharges, and its “profits reaped from the transactions were recouped in the United States”; and (4) BNP entered into a Banking Agreement with the United Nations in New York pursuant to which it maintained an escrow account in New York City through which all OFP funds moved, including the illicit surcharge payments. First, the fact that the United Nations is located in New York, and that the OFP’s inception and administration occurred in New York, is irrelevant. Such allegations, by themselves, are not facts related to defendants at all, let alone alleged conduct taken by defendants to aid and abet violations of the law of nations. Second, where Chevron is headquartered is also immaterial, because, as just discussed, the relevant inquiry is on conduct constituting a violation of customary international law or of aiding 37 No. 10‐5258‐cv and abetting such violations, not on where defendants are present. A defendant’s nationality or citizenship is pertinent only insofar as it relates to its alleged U.S. conduct. Third, our jurisdictional analysis need not take into account allegations that, on their face, do not satisfy basic pleading requirements. Allegations must be more than “[t]hreadbare recitals of the elements of a cause of action, supported by mere conclusory statements.” Iqbal, 556 U.S. at 678. Plaintiffs’ assertion that, because Chevron was headquartered in the United States, “much of the decisionmaking to participate in the [OFP] scheme” was necessarily made in the United States, is just such a conclusory assumption. Appellants’ Ltr. Br. 4.16 Yet plaintiffs do make additional allegations of Chevron and BNP’s U.S.‐based attempts to skirt the sanctions regime, the combination of which appear to “touch and concern” the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption. For example, plaintiffs allege that Iraqi oil under contract with Russian companies “was in fact purchased and financed . . . in the United States” by Chevron, Compl. ¶ 57, and that “Chevron financed the sale of two million barrels of oil to Bulf Oil through Midway Oil of Reston, Virginia” for which Chevron “facilitated” “a surcharge We also note that the only place plaintiffs allege that “decisionmaking to 16 participate in the scheme” took place in the United States was in their supplemental letter brief, rather than in their complaint. Appellants’ Ltr. Br. 4. Nevertheless, we include it in our analysis as a corollary of the clearly‐pleaded facts of Chevron’s United States activities related to the alleged OFP violations. See App’x 12. 38 No. 10‐5258‐cv payment of nearly half a million dollars be paid to the [Saddam Hussein] regime,” id. ¶¶ 73‐75. They further allege, as a general matter, that “profits rendered from the transactions w[ere] recouped in the United States.” Id. ¶ 17. Regarding BNP, plaintiffs allege that BNP “maintained the escrow account in New York City” through which all payments were transmitted pursuant to the OFP. Appellants’ Ltr. Br. 4. They further allege that “BNP allowed payments through the New York escrow account that included kickbacks to the [Saddam Hussein] Regime,” that “BNP’s financing arrangements in New York allowed the oil purchasers to conceal the true nature of the oil purchase.” Id. at 5. Allegedly, “BNP enabled the oil purchasers and humanitarian goods suppliers to include funds [diverted to the Saddam Hussein regime] which were not captured in the escrow account,” and the illicit “oil surcharge scheme relied on the financing arrangements made by BNP Paribas in three‐fourths of the transactions.” Compl. ¶¶ 113‐14, 121. This particular combination of conduct in the United States— on the part of Chevron, multiple domestic purchases and financing transactions; on the part of BNP, numerous New York‐based payments and “financing arrangements” conducted exclusively through a New York bank account—is both specific and domestic. These allegations assert non‐conclusory conduct that appears to “touch[ ] and concern[ ]” the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality and establish our 39 No. 10‐5258‐cv jurisdiction under the ATS, 17 if such conduct also meets the second prong of our extraterritoriality analysis—i.e., if it satisfies a preliminary determination that such conduct aided and abetted a violation of the law of nations. To do this, we provide a brief overview of the elements necessary to state a claim for aiding and abetting a violation of the law of nations under the ATS. Our decision in Presbyterian Church resolved earlier uncertainty about the elements of a claim of aiding and abetting liability under the ATS. There, plaintiffs were Sudanese citizens who brought suit under the ATS against a Canadian oil company, alleging that security arrangements for the company carried out by the Sudanese government led to persecution of citizens living near oil concession areas. 582 F.3d at 249‐52. Evaluating whether it was sufficient to state a claim that the defendant company knew of the alleged abuses, we held that “the mens rea standard for aiding and abetting liability in ATS actions is purpose rather than knowledge In concluding that these allegations of domestic conduct “touch[ ] and 17 concern[ ]” the United States with sufficient force to displace the presumption against extraterritoriality, we note the analytical similarity between the allegations in this complaint, and those in another case in which the district court conducted the ATS extraterritoriality analysis according to the framework we have articulated here. In Krishanti v. Rajaratnam, the district court found that it had subject matter jurisdiction over the ATS claims because, although the alleged effects of defendant’s violations of the law of nations were felt exclusively in Sri Lanka, the claim was based entirely on “alleged actions that occurred within the United States” including defendant’s hosting of meetings and fundraisers for a foreign terrorist organization in New Jersey, donating money to a U.S.‐based group which was purposefully funneled to the terrorist organization, and creating corporations in the United States to further facilitate donations to the terrorist organization. No. 2.09 Civ. 05395, 2014 WL 1669873, at  (D.N.J. Apr. 28, 2014). 40 No. 10‐5258‐cv alone.” Id. 259 (emphasis supplied). 18 We noted the lack of a sufficient international consensus “for imposing liability on individuals who knowingly (but not purposefully) aid and abet a violation of international law.” Id. Assuming, without deciding, that conspiracy liability for completed offenses was a valid theory in an ATS action,19 we also concluded that any such claims would require the same mens rea element as claims for aiding and abetting. Id. at 260. In establishing this standard as the law of the Circuit, the unanimous Presbyterian Church panel relied substantially and