Court Opinion

ID: 9414190
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-01 23:40:25.977495+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T16:47:13.851206
License: Public Domain

ON PETITION FOR PANEL REHEARING

PER CURIAM:
IT IS ORDERED that the Republic of Congo’s motion for leave to file its petition for rehearing out of time is GRANTED.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the Republic of Congo’s petition for panel rehearing is DENIED. In the petition, the Congo points out that the majority opinion in this case neglected to address explicitly one of the two prongs of analysis under 28 U.S.C. § 1610(a). Section 1610(a) provides that, under certain circumstances, a judgment creditor may execute against the “property in the United States of a foreign state ... used for a commercial activity in the United States.” The majority opinion addressed the second of these clauses, but not the first. That is, it addressed whether the royalty and tax obligations at issue were “used for a commercial activity in the United States,” but not whether the obligations were “property in the United States” within the meaning of the statute.
In our view, this omission does not require any change to the mandate of the majority opinion. The factual question of what the royalty and tax obligations are “used for” appears much less difficult on this record than the legal question of determining the situs of the intangible royalty obligations. Moreover, despite the Congo’s arguments to the contrary, we continue to believe that the district court is the appropriate forum to resolve the factual question of how the Congo uses its property.
The petition for panel rehearing is therefore DENIED.