Court Opinion

ID: 9482240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:44:23.693861+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:53.529047
License: Public Domain

*116MAHONEY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in the judgment.
I concur in the judgment of affirmance, but write separately because of my disagreement with the majority’s ruling as to appealability.
I note at the outset the majority’s observation that Sperry Int’l Trade, Inc. v. Government of Israel, 689 F.2d 301, 305 n. 7 (2d Cir.1982), and Williamette Transport, Inc. v. CIA. Anonima Venezolana de Navegacion, 491 F.Supp. 442, 443-44 (E.D.La.1980), cast doubt upon the proposition “that an order requiring the posting of security is an ‘attachment’ of a foreign state’s property within the meaning of the FSIA.” Williamette involved a special situation of “equality of security” between an admiralty claimant and counterclaimant, and in any event is not binding authority here. Sperry ruled that an interim arbitral award directing that the proceeds of a letter of credit be held jointly in escrow by the parties to the arbitration was “an in personam order, not an attachment order of the sort forbidden by § 1609.” 689 F.2d at 305 n. 7.
Somewhat more recently, however, we held in S & S Mach. Co. v. Masinexportimport, 706 F.2d 411, 418 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 464 U.S. 850, 104 S.Ct. 161, 78 L.Ed.2d 147 (1983), that an injunction prohibiting negotiation of letters of credit was an FSIA “attachment,” stating: “The FSIA would become meaningless if courts could eviscerate its protections merely by denominating their restraints as injunctions against the negotiation or use of property rather than as attachments of that property.” 706 F.2d at 418; see also Raji v. Bank Sepah-Iran, 131 Misc.2d 158, 162, 495 N.Y.S.2d 576, 581 (Sup.Ct.1985) (“The congressional intent was to encompass all encumbrances and restraints imposed to prevent the dissipation of assets before judgment.”). The restraint involved here in compelling a bond in excess of ten million dollars is at least as severe an imposition upon property interests as the injunction which S & S Machinery held to be an FSIA “attachment.”
In any event, the majority opinion is premised upon the assumption (which I consider a correct view of the law) that the district court’s order requiring the posting of security was an “attachment” of a foreign state’s property within the meaning of 28 U.S.C. §§ 1609 and 1610 (1988). Section 1609 provides that “the property in the United States of a foreign state shall be immune from attachment" (emphasis added). The majority concludes, however, that there is “no reason to distinguish for purposes of appellate review between an order granting security that is erroneous on the merits and an identical order that is issued in the face of a statute such as the FSIA stating that a party is ‘immune’ from such an order.”
I disagree. The majority regards as distinguishable a line of cases allowing immediate appeal from denials of claims of immunity under the FSIA. See Stena Rederi AB v. Comision de Contratos del Comite, 923 F.2d 380, 385-86 (5th Cir.1991); Compania Mexicana de Aviacion, S.A. v. United States District Court, 859 F.2d 1354, 1358 (9th Cir.1988); Segni v. Commercial Office of Spain, 816 F.2d 344, 346-47 (7th Cir.1987)). Admittedly, the immunity denied in these cases was immunity from subject matter jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1604 (1988), which affords protection from the “expense of defending what may be a protracted lawsuit.” Compania Mexicana, 859 F.2d at 1358 (citing Segni, 816 F.2d at 345). Providing security in the amount of $10,255,728.80 may be a lesser burden, but it is surely not de minimis.
Congress valued the protection against prejudgment attachment so highly, furthermore, that it specified that such immunity may only be “explicitly” waived. See 28 U.S.C. § 1610(d)(1) (1988). On the other hand, section 1604 immunity from subject matter jurisdiction, as well as immunity from execution of judgment and attachment in aid of execution, may be waived “either explicitly or by implication.” See id. §§ 1605(a)(1), 1610(a)(1). It is accordingly my view that the majority’s ruling on appealability gives short shrift to the congressional policy underlying FSIA immunity from pretrial attachment, and that appeals invoking that immunity properly come within the “collateral order” rule of *117Cohen v. Beneficial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), as amplified in Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay, 437 U.S. 463, 468, 98 S.Ct. 2454, 2457, 57 L.Ed.2d 351 (1978).
I nonetheless concur in the judgment of the majority. Whether this appeal is regarded as before us pursuant to the collateral order exception to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 (1988), as I would rule, or is examined by the more stringent standards of mandamus, I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the district court did not abuse its discretion in ruling, pursuant to Civil Rule 3(j) of the Southern District of New York, that NNPC’s invocation of the FSIA was untimely. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 83 (district courts may adopt rules not inconsistent with Federal Rules of Civil Procedure) and 12(g) (as a general rule, defense not asserted in initial motion presenting other defenses may not be asserted by subsequent motion). This is not a ruling, of course, that anything NNPC did amounted to an explicit waiver pursuant to section 1610(d)(1). Rather, it is a ruling that the section 1610(d)(1) defense was not timely asserted.