Opinion ID: 184933
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Implied Waiver The former exception provides:

Text: 14 (a) A foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in any case -- 15
16 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. 17 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). 18 The closest Creighton comes to arguing that Qatar intended to waive its sovereign immunity is in pointing to this statement in the House Report accompanying the FSIA: the courts have found [implicit] waivers in cases where a foreign state has agreed to arbitration in another country. H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 18 (1976), reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6604, 6617. Creighton claims Qatar's agreement to arbitrate in France should be deemed an implicit waiver of its sovereign immunity in U.S. courts. Cf. id. (explaining courts have also found such waivers where a foreign state has agreed that the law of a particular country should govern a contract). 19 We follow the Second Circuit in rejecting such a broad reading of the implicit waiver exception. 20 [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. 21 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). 22 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. 23 Creighton seeks support in three cases in which the court found an implied waiver where a foreign government had agreed (like Qatar) to arbitrate in the territory of a state that had signed the New York Convention. See Seetransport, 989 F.2d at 578-79; M.B.L. Int'l Contractors v. Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, 725 F. Supp. 52, 54-55 (D.D.C. 1989);Ipitrade Int'l S.A. v. Federal Republic of Nigeria, 465 F. Supp. 824, 826 (D.D.C. 1978). In each of these cases, however, the defendant sovereign was (unlike Qatar) a signatory to the Convention. In Seetransport the Second Circuit reasoned, correctly we think, that when a country becomes a signatory to the Convention, by the very provisions of the Convention, the signatory state must have contemplated enforcement actions in other signatory states. 989 F.2d at 578. 24 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. 25