Court Opinion

ID: 9913784
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-28 19:00:59.429896+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:58:21.593207
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 20-14058    Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023   Page: 1 of 34

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit

                           ____________________

                                 No. 20-14058
                           ____________________

        ARCHITECTURAL INGENIERIA SIGLO XXI, LLC,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        DOMINICAN REPUBLIC,
        INSTITUTO NACIONAL
        DE RECURSOS HIDRAULICOS,
                                                   Defendants-Appellees.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                    D.C. Docket No. 1:13-CV-20544-KMM
                           ____________________
USCA11 Case: 20-14058         Document: 81-1        Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 2 of 34

        2                          Opinion of the Court                  20-14058

        Before BRANCH and LUCK, Circuit Judges, and SANDS,∗ District
        Judge.
        SANDS, District Judge:
               This appeal arises from a bench trial on Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        Architectural Ingenieria Siglo XXI, LLC’s (“AIS”), Amended Com-
        plaint for breach of contract and damages following vacatur of a
        prior judgment and remand by a prior panel of this Court. Archi-
        tectural Ingenieria Siglo XXI, LLC v. Dominican Republic, 788 F.3d 1329,
        1340 (11th Cir. 2015) (“Architectural I”). The contract to construct
        an irrigation project in the Dominican Province of Azua was en-
        tered into between AIS (“Appellant”), Sun Land & RGITC LLC, 1
        (“Sun Land”), the Instituto Nacional de Recursos Hidraulicos
        (“INDRHI”), an independent autonomous entity within the Do-
        minican Republic, and the Dominican Republic. After the eﬀective
        date of the agreement consisting of the Purchase Agreement and
        the Protocol, which together formed the contract at the center of
        this dispute, performance of the contract continued through two
        agreed extensions. Although a third extension had been approved
        by the Parties, it never went into eﬀect because the contract had
        already been terminated by INDRHI.

        ∗ Honorable W. Louis Sands, United States District Judge for the Middle Dis-

        trict of Georgia, sitting by designation.
        1 Co-Plaintiff, Sun Land & RGITC LLC, f/k/a Sun Land & RGITC, Co., did
        not join in the appeal.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 3 of 34

        20-14058              Opinion of the Court                        3

                Pursuant to the Amended Complaint, AIS and Sun Land al-
        leged that Dominican Republic and INDRHI breached the contract
        and sought damages for the breach along with other speciﬁed dam-
        ages. Following a bench trial, the district court issued its ﬁndings
        of fact and conclusions of law. Therein, the district court con-
        ﬁrmed its earlier summary judgment that INDRHI had breached
        the agreement by terminating the contract in violation of the con-
        tract’s force majeure terms and granted damages against INDRHI in
        the amount of $576,842.00, plus prejudgment interest. The district
        court also found that the Dominican Republic had not separately
        breached the contract and AIS and Sun Land had failed to over-
        come the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s (“FSIA”) presump-
        tion that the Dominican Republic and INDRHI are separate enti-
        ties. 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b). The Court also found that damages for
        unpaid work invoices were not due from INDRHI or the Domini-
        can Republic, but rather co-Plaintiﬀ, Sun Land. The Court recon-
        sidered its ﬁndings and conclusions of law upon Appellant’s Motion
        and denied it.
                This appeal by AIS followed. AIS contends the trial court
        abused its discretion and clearly erred by ﬁnding that the presump-
        tion of separateness was not overcome, that the Dominican Repub-
        lic did not breach the contract and that damages from unpaid in-
        voices for work performed was not due from INDRHI or the Do-
        minican Republic, but rather Sun Land. AIS also contends that the
        trial court’s determination of damages was clearly erroneous and
        an abuse of discretion. Upon review, because we ﬁnd that the trial
        court’s ﬁndings are substantially supported by the entire record and
USCA11 Case: 20-14058         Document: 81-1          Date Filed: 12/28/2023         Page: 4 of 34

        4                          Opinion of the Court                        20-14058

        the court correctly applied the applicable law, it did not clearly err.
        Therefore, with the beneﬁt of oral argument, we aﬃrm.
                          RELEVANT FACTUAL HISTORY 2
        I.      The Contract
               This appeal focuses upon a contract to construct an irriga-
        tion infrastructure project, in the Dominican Province of Azua,
        commonly referred to as the Azua II project. At some point in the
        year 2000, INDRHI, a governmental agency, which is substantially,
        although not wholly funded by designations in the Dominican Re-
        public’s national budget, proposed the construction of the Azua II
        project. The purpose of the Azua II project was to irrigate a 3,000-
        hectare area. INDRHI and the Secretario Tecnico de la Presidencia
        de la Republica (“Technical Secretary”), acting on behalf of the Do-
        minican Republic, invited contractors to submit bids to construct
        the Azua II project. Sun Land and AIS ultimately submitted the
        winning bid. Thereafter, on November 20, 2001, then-President of
        the Dominican Republic, Hipolito Mejia, issued an executive order
        granting authority to the Technical Secretary and INDRHI to enter
        into various agreements on behalf of the Dominican Republic in
        furtherance of the Azua II project.
             One of those agreements was a Purchase Agreement be-
        tween Sun Land, INDRHI and the Technical Secretary of the

        2 Because the district court did not always elaborate upon some of its conclu-
        sions, we, reviewing the entire record, include greater detail in our analysis for
        clarity.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 5 of 34

        20-14058              Opinion of the Court                        5

        Dominican Republic. Pursuant to the terms of the Purchase
        Agreement, Sun Land agreed to purchase and export to the Do-
        minican Republic the products and services necessary to complete
        the Azua II project, including a feasibility study to determine the
        exact needs of INDRHI. The Purchase Agreement provided that
        Azua II was to be a turnkey project, which would take twenty-four
        (24) months to complete, for a total ﬁxed cost of $51,777,321.00.
               Pursuant to the Purchase Agreement, on March 7, 2002,
        INDRHI and AIS executed Contract No. 10375 to provide for the
        studies, designs, and construction of the Azua II project. On Feb-
        ruary 13, 2004, Sun Land, AIS and INDRHI entered into “The Pro-
        tocol” that was designed to execute the terms of the Purchase
        Agreement. The Protocol expressly superseded Contract No.
        10375. Accordingly, when this matter was previously appealed in
        Architectural I, a prior panel of this Court held that the Purchase
        Agreement and the Protocol together are the contract at the center
        of this dispute. 788 F.3d at 1340.
               With the Purchase Agreement and the Protocol in place, AIS
        commenced work on the Azua II project on March 16, 2004. Apart
        from a three-month stop work order delay, from August 2004 to
        November 2004, that was issued by INDRHI, the project continued
        without interruption. Over the next four years, AIS leveled the land
        and constructed lagoons and dykes. The majority of the actual
        construction work took place in 2007 and 2008. By all accounts,
        AIS’s performance of its construction duties over that four-year pe-
        riod was satisfactory, with AIS fully complying with its obligations
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 6 of 34

        6                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14058

        as principal contractor. Despite AIS fully complying with its obli-
        gations as principal contractor, the Azua II project did not proceed
        on time, and it became impossible to provide a turnkey project for
        the initial budget of $51,777,321.00 in twenty-four (24) months, as
        provided in the initial contract.
               AIS ceased construction in August 2008 due to nonpayment.
        Thereafter, on February 13, 2009, INDRHI notiﬁed Sun Land via
        letter that because ﬁnancing for the Azua II project had fallen
        through, INDRHI would be terminating the Protocol citing force
        majeure.
        II.   Financing Azua II
                The Purchase Agreement provided that the total contract
        price ($51,777,321.00) would be ﬁnanced, 85% of which was to
        come from a Credit Agreement with SunTrust Bank, N.A. (“Sun-
        Trust”), guaranteed by Export-Import Bank of the United States
        (“EX-IM”), with the remaining 15% of the total contract price to
        be ﬁnanced through a lender engaged by Sun Land. In sum, the
        Dominican Republic was the borrower, SunTrust was the lender
        through the letter of credit, and EX-IM was the guarantor. To ful-
        ﬁll its obligations under the Purchase Agreement, Sun Land en-
        gaged the Florida Export Finance Corporation (“FEFC”) to ar-
        range the 85% guaranteed loan with EX-IM.
               Under the terms of the Purchase Agreement, the funds
        could only be disbursed to Sun Land, and could only be disbursed
        after EX-IM fully guaranteed the loan. In order for EX-IM to fully
        guarantee the loan, the following three (3) steps were required: (1)
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1     Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 7 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                        7

        the Dominican Republic complete the conditions precedent in the
        Credit Agreement; (2) EX-IM issue an “Operative Memorandum”
        agreeing that the conditions precedent had been satisﬁed; and (3)
        EX-IM issue a Letter of Credit identifying how Sun Land could dis-
        burse the funds.
               This three-step approval process would prove the Azua II
        project’s undoing not due to any fault of the Parties to this action,
        but rather due to bureaucratic ineﬃciencies. Those bureaucratic
        ineﬃciencies stemmed from the inattentiveness of EX-IM’s attor-
        neys. For example, evidence was introduced at trial that all Parties
        agreed that the conditions precedent for EX-IM’s guarantee were
        satisﬁed as of October 28, 2003. However, in April 2004, EX-IM’s
        attorney informed the Parties that the conditions precedent had
        not been satisﬁed, because documents were missing from the Do-
        minican Republic’s submission. It was later discovered, however,
        that the missing documents had simply been misplaced by EX-IM’s
        attorney. EX-IM attorney’s inattentiveness signiﬁcantly delayed the
        project, because EX-IM’s attorney took months to respond to
        email, objected to statements of Dominican Republic law, and lost
        key documents, including a $43,000,000.00 promissory note.
               As a result of these bureaucratic delays, by the time EX-IM
        issued a Letter of Credit in April 2006, the Credit Agreement’s ini-
        tial Final Disbursement Date of October 15, 2005, had already
        elapsed. Accordingly, the Credit Agreement was amended for the
        ﬁrst time on August 14, 2006, to extend the Final Disbursement
        Date to October 15, 2007. The Parties agreed to amend the Credit
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 8 of 34

        8                     Opinion of the Court                 20-14058

        Agreement a second time on March 2, 2007, to address issues in-
        volving certain local costs that had not been accounted for by
        EX-IM. The Parties agreed to amend the Credit Agreement for a
        third time in January 2008 to extend the Final Disbursement Date
        to October 15, 2009.
               The Third Amendment to the Credit Agreement would not
        be ﬁnalized until September 4, 2008, or presented to then-President
        Leonel Fernandez of the Dominican Republic, for formal submis-
        sion to the Dominican Republic Congress, until September 30,
        2008. It is unclear whether President Fernandez ever submitted the
        Third Amendment to the Credit Agreement to the Dominican Re-
        public Congress for ratiﬁcation. In any event, congressional ratiﬁ-
        cation became a moot issue when SunTrust withdrew from the
        Azua II project before the Dominican Congress ratiﬁed the amend-
        ment, citing the adversities faced in obtaining an extension of the
        term period of the contract. INDRHI then notiﬁed Sun Land on
        February 13, 2009, that it was terminating the Protocol citing force
        majeure.
        III.   Payments Made Under the Contract
              Under the terms of the Protocol, INDRHI and the Domini-
        can Republic were required to review AIS’s invoices and if ap-
        proved, transmit them with the appropriate approval documents to
        Sun Land. Sun Land was then required to submit those approval
        documents to the lender, SunTrust. SunTrust was then required to
        disburse funds to Sun Land pursuant to the terms of the Credit
        Agreement.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 9 of 34

        20-14058              Opinion of the Court                        9

               During the ﬁve-month period, from May 2007 to Octo-
        ber 15, 2007, during which funds for the Azua II project were avail-
        able, SunTrust made twenty-seven (27) disbursements under the
        Credit Agreement to Sun Land. Those twenty-seven (27) disburse-
        ments totaled over $15,000,000.00. In anticipation of the Final Dis-
        bursement Date, INDRHI, AIS, and Sun Land also took an advance
        payment of $3,500,000.00 to continue work through December
        2007. Eighty-ﬁve percent of that advance payment, $2,980.421.00,
        was held by Sun Land in an account.
               AIS in comparison issued a total of twenty-two (22) Cubi-
        caciones (hereinafter “work invoice”) to be paid to AIS by Sun
        Land, in the total amount of $12,398,044.00. The sum of Sun-
        Trust’s disbursements exceeded the amount that AIS billed in its
        work invoices. After the Final Disbursement Date, INDRHI in-
        structed Sun Land in writing to pay AIS the balance owed that had
        been withheld by Sun Land. Despite this, AIS was not paid in full
        by Sun Land for work invoices 18(c)–22. The remission of the pay-
        ment after approval was Sun Land’s responsibility.
        IV.   Subsequent Pertinent Events
               After the contract was terminated, the following pertinent
        events occurred. In March 2009, a month after INDRHI termi-
        nated the contract, then-President of the Dominican Republic, Le-
        onel Fernandez, allegedly advised the president of AIS, Mr. Morales
        Perez, that he did not like Sun Land and would not continue the
        work. In April 2009, Utah State University, which had been hired
        to serve as the Construction Project Supervisor, issued a
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 10 of 34

        10                     Opinion of the Court                20-14058

        memorandum indicating that the President of the Dominican Re-
        public had been oﬀended by representatives from Sun Land and
        had decided to freeze the project in December 2008, which was
        four months after AIS ceased work on the project due to nonpay-
        ment. Finally, in November 2011, years after the termination of the
        contract by INDRHI, INDRHI issued several press releases stating
        that it had entered into a contract with Constructora Queiroz Gal-
        vao, S.A. (“CQG”), a Brazilian company, to complete Azua II.
                     RELEVANT PROCEDURAL HISTORY
                Following the vacatur and remand of the entry of default
        judgment, against Appellees, Appellant AIS and Sun Land ﬁled an
        Amended Complaint, alleging one count of breach of contract by
        INDRHI and the Dominican Republic. Therein, Appellant alleged
        that the Defendants had terminated the contract in violation of its
        terms and failed to pay AIS, Appellant, the agreed price for the
        work completed. The Amended Complaint is the operative com-
        plaint in this matter.
               At the summary judgment stage of proceedings, the district
        court granted partial summary judgment in favor of Appellant and
        Sun Land, co-plaintiﬀ below, concluding that INDRHI was liable
        for breach of contract, because it had failed to adhere to the notice
        provisions relating to force majeure. The district court denied Ap-
        pellant and Sun Land’s motion for summary judgment as to the
        Dominican Republic’s liability. However, because it concluded that
        AIS and Sun Land had not overcome the presumption that INDRHI
        and the Dominican Republic were entitled to separate juridical
USCA11 Case: 20-14058        Document: 81-1        Date Filed: 12/28/2023        Page: 11 of 34

        20-14058                  Opinion of the Court                              11

        status but had presented a genuine issue of material fact on that
        question, the district court also denied the Appellees’ motion for
        summary judgment.
                Thereafter, a bench trial was held between January 30, 2017,
        and March 14, 2017. 3 Following the bench trial, the district court
        issued its ﬁndings of fact and conclusions of law on September 30,
        2017. Therein, the district court found that INDRHI was liable to
        Appellant-Plaintiﬀ, AIS, and Sun Land, for breach of contract be-
        cause its termination of the contract due to force majeure had been
        in violation of the notice provisions of the contract. The court
        found that the Dominican Republic was not liable for INDRHI’s
        breach of contract, because it also found that Appellant had failed
        to overcome the presumption that the Dominican Republic and
        INDRHI were separate entities, and further that the Dominican
        Republic had not separately breached the contract. The district
        court then awarded Appellant AIS damages for the breach of con-
        tract in the amount of $576,842.00 as lost proﬁts, plus prejudgment
        interest against INDRHI.
                Appellant and Sun Land subsequently moved to amend the
        district court’s ﬁndings of fact pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(b) or in
        the alternative for a new trial under Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(a)(2). Therein,
        they contended that amendment or a new trial was appropriate,

        3 The bench trial lasted for a total of eight (8) days, which were interspersed
        between the months of January and March 2017.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023      Page: 12 of 34

        12                      Opinion of the Court                  20-14058

        because the district court had (1) failed to attribute liability to the
        Dominican Republic for delays in securing the project’s ﬁnancing
        that Appellant believes were attributable to the Dominican Repub-
        lic Congress’s actions, (2) improperly treated certain evidence as
        inadmissible hearsay and failed to give it proper weight, (3) over-
        looked evidence that Appellant believes establishes that the Domin-
        ican Republic instructed INDRHI to terminate Azua II, and (4) im-
        properly excused Defendants (Appellees) for nonpayment of in-
        voiced work. The district court treated Appellant’s motion to
        amend as a motion for reconsideration and denied it, except for
        partially altering its prior characterization of certain evidence as in-
        admissible hearsay. This appeal followed.
                             STANDARD OF REVIEW
               “On appeal of a district court order from a bench trial, we
        review the court’s conclusions of law de novo and its ﬁndings of fact
        for clear error.” HGI Assocs., Inc. v. Wetmore Printing Co., 427 F.3d
        867, 873 (11th Cir. 2005); see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6) (“Findings
        of fact, whether based on oral or other evidence, must not be set
        aside unless clearly erroneous, and the reviewing court must give
        due regard to the trial court’s opportunity to judge the witnesses’
        credibility.”) “Clear error is a highly deferential standard of re-
        view.” Morrissette-Brown v. Mobile Inﬁrmary Med. Ctr., 506 F.3d 1317,
        1319 (11th Cir. 2007) (quoting Holton v. City of Thomasville Sch. Dist.,
        425 F.3d 1325, 1350 (11th Cir. 2005)).
              “The court’s ﬁndings will stand as long as they are supported
        by substantial evidence.” Fischer v. S/Y NERAIDA, 508 F.3d 586, 592
USCA11 Case: 20-14058         Document: 81-1         Date Filed: 12/28/2023         Page: 13 of 34

        20-14058                   Opinion of the Court                                13

        (11th Cir. 2007) (citing Thelma C. Raley, Inc. v. Kleppe, 867 F.2d 1326,
        1328 (11th Cir. 1989)). This is because “the district court has the
        advantage of observing the witnesses and evaluating their credibil-
        ity ﬁrsthand, and the standard of review imposes an especially
        heavy burden on [the] appellant.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).
        Stated otherwise, if “the district court’s account of the evidence is
        plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety, the court of
        appeals may not reverse it even though convinced that had it been
        sitting as the trier of fact, it would have weighed the evidence dif-
        ferently.” Morrissette-Brown, 506 F.3d at 1319 (quoting Anderson v.
        City of Bessemer City, 470 U.S. 564, 573–74 (1985)). This is because
        when “there are two permissible views of the evidence, the fact-
        ﬁnder’s choice between them cannot be clearly erroneous.” Id.
                Finally, we “may aﬃrm [the district court’s judgment] on
        any ground that ﬁnds support in the record.” Lucas v. W.W. Grain-
        ger, Inc., 257 F.3d 1249, 1256 (11th Cir. 2001) (quotation marks and
        citations omitted).
                                       DISCUSSION
               Appellant, AIS, contends that the district court erred on six
        (6) separate issues. 4 AIS’s six (6) issues, however, are subsumed by

        4 Specifically, (1) whether the district court erred as a matter of law in failing
        to hold the Dominican Republic legally responsible for the actions of its own
        Congress; (2) whether the district court abused its discretion or committed
        clear error in ignoring admitted, consistent, and unrebutted evidence that es-
        tablished the Dominican Republic’s direct liability for breach of contract; (3)
        whether the district court abused its discretion in ruling that the Dominican
USCA11 Case: 20-14058        Document: 81-1        Date Filed: 12/28/2023        Page: 14 of 34

        14                        Opinion of the Court                      20-14058

        three (3) controlling issues on appeal which are: (A) whether the
        district court’s conclusion that the Dominican Republic and
        INDRHI are separate entities is supported by substantial evidence;
        (B) whether the district court’s ﬁnding that the Dominican Repub-
        lic did not breach the contract is supported by substantial evidence;
        and (C) whether the district court’s determination of Appellant’s
        damages is supported by substantial evidence pursuant to applica-
        ble law. We shall address each issue in turn.
        A. The District Court’s Finding that the Dominican Republic
           and INDRHI Are Separate Entities Is Supported by Substan-
           tial Evidence.
                Appellant ﬁrst contends that the district court abused its dis-
        cretion by concluding that Appellant and Sun Land, i.e., Plaintiﬀs
        below, “[had] not met their burden of overcoming the presumption
        of juridical separateness” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities
        Act. Appellees argue this question was already decided in Architec-
        tural I, wherein they contend that this Court held that the Domini-
        can Republic and INDRHI “had established entitlement to the FSIA
        presumption of separateness and that AIS had failed to overcome
        it.”

        Republic and INDRHI were entitled to the presumption of separateness; (4)
        whether the district court abused its discretion in limiting AIS’s lost future
        profits in a manner that allegedly applied the wrong legal standard and ignored
        the evidence; (5) whether the district court’s finding that AIS had been com-
        pensated for its delay damages was clear error; and (6) whether the district
        court erred as a matter of law by not awarding damages for work performed
        once it found AIS had not been paid for work it performed and invoiced.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1       Date Filed: 12/28/2023      Page: 15 of 34

        20-14058                Opinion of the Court                          15

                In Architectural I, the Dominican Republic challenged the dis-
        trict court’s subject matter jurisdiction over AIS and Sun Land’s
        breach-of-contract claims. We held that the district court had sub-
        ject matter jurisdiction over the Dominican Republic pursuant to
        its explicit waiver of sovereign immunity contained in the Purchase
        Agreement which the Dominican Republic had signed. 788 F.3d at
        1341–42. We further held that the waiver extended to the “[P]ro-
        tocol [as it] constitutes a transaction contemplated by the [P]ur-
        chase [A]greement.” Id. at 1342. We then held with respect to three
        side agreements signed only by INDRHI—which we found to be un-
        related to the Purchase Agreement or Protocol—that AIS and Sun
        Land had failed to overcome the FSIA’s presumption that the Do-
        minican Republic and INDRHI are separate entities under the
        FSIA. Id. at 1342–43. Thus, we concluded that the Dominican Re-
        public was not amenable to suit in federal court for its alleged
        breach of those three agreements. Id. at 1343.
                However, our holding in Architectural I focused on the dis-
        trict court’s jurisdiction and is not the law of the case as to the issue
        on appeal here; i.e., whether AIS met its burden to overcome the
        FSIA presumption of juridical separateness as to the Purchase
        Agreement and Protocol. Nor did we discuss in Architectural I the
        elements necessary to overcome the presumption. See Christianson
        v. Colt Indus. Operating Corp., 486 U.S. 800, 815–16 (1988) (“As most
        commonly deﬁned, the doctrine [of the law of the case] posits that
        when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should con-
        tinue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the same
        case.” (quoting Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983)); see
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1       Date Filed: 12/28/2023      Page: 16 of 34

        16                      Opinion of the Court                   20-14058

        also Transamerica Leasing, Inc. v. Inst. of London Underwriters, 430 F.3d
        1326, 1332 (11th Cir. 2005) (noting that the law-of-the-case doctrine
        only applies to the extent the issue in question was within the scope
        of the prior appeal).
                 Therefore, to hold the Dominican Republic liable for
        INDRHI’s breach of contract, AIS had to overcome the FSIA’s pre-
        sumption of separate legal status. As this is a mixed question of
        law and fact, the standard of review depends on “whether answer-
        ing [the question] entails primarily legal or factual work.” Monasky
        v. Taglieri, 140 S. Ct. 719, 730 (2020) (quoting U.S. Bank Nat’l. Ass’n
        v. Vill. at Lakeridge, LLC, 138 S. Ct. 960, 967 (2018)).
               Mixed questions are not all alike. . . . [S]ome require
               courts to expound on the law, particularly by amplify-
               ing or elaborating on a broad legal standard. When
               that is so—when applying the law involves developing
               auxiliary legal principles of use in other cases—appel-
               late courts should typically review a decision de novo.
               But . . . other mixed questions immerse courts in
               case-speciﬁc factual issues—compelling them to mar-
               shal and weigh evidence, make credibility judgments,
               and otherwise address what we have (emphatically if
               a tad redundantly) called “multifarious, ﬂeeting, spe-
               cial, narrow facts that utterly resist generalization.”
               And when that is so, appellate courts should usually
               review a decision with deference.
        Vill. at Lakeridge, 138 S. Ct. at 967 (citations omitted). Here, for the
        reasons noted below, we review de novo the district court’s finding
        that the Dominican Republic and INDRHI are separate entities.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023      Page: 17 of 34

        20-14058                Opinion of the Court                         17

               According to the Supreme Court of the United States, as
        stated in First National City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de
        Cuba, the FSIA’s presumption of separate legal status may be over-
        come in two ways: (1) “where a corporate identity is so extensively
        controlled by its owner that a relationship of principal and agent is
        created” or (2) where recognition of the instrumentality as an en-
        tity separate from the state “would work fraud or injustice.” 462
        U.S. 611, 629 (1983) (quotations omitted). In this case, AIS at-
        tempted to overcome the FSIA’s presumption by contending that
        INDRHI was so extensively controlled by the Dominican Republic
        that a relationship of principal and agent existed.
                Under this Circuit’s precedent, in cases “[w]here jurisdiction
        depends on an allegation that the particular defendant was an agent
        of the sovereign, the plaintiﬀ bears the burden of proving this rela-
        tionship.” S & Davis Int’l Inc. v. Republic of Yemen, 218 F.3d 1292,
        1299 (11th Cir. 2000) (quoting Arriba Ltd. v. Petroleos Mexicanos, 962
        F.2d 528, 533–34 (5th Cir. 1992)). When “applying the agency ex-
        ception to the rule of sovereign immunity [and separateness], how
        much control the sovereign exercised over the instrumentality is
        reviewed.” Id. at 1299 (quoting Transamerica Leasing, Inc. v. La Re-
        publica de Venezuela, 200 F.3d 843, 848 (D.C. Cir. 2000)). “Control is
        relevant when the sovereign exercises its control in such a way as
        to make the instrumentality its agent; in that case control renders
        the sovereign amenable to suit under ordinary agency principles.”
        Id. (alteration adopted) (quoting La Republica de Venezuela, 200 F.3d
        at 849). While it is true that a “sovereign need not exercise com-
        plete dominion over an instrumentality—to the point of stripping
USCA11 Case: 20-14058       Document: 81-1       Date Filed: 12/28/2023        Page: 18 of 34

        18                       Opinion of the Court                    20-14058

        it of any meaningful separate identity—in order to establish a rela-
        tionship of principal and agent,” the sovereign must still exercise
        “its control in a manner more direct than by voting a majority of
        the stock in the subsidiary or making appointments to the subsidi-
        ary’s Board of Directors.” Id.
                In this Circuit’s seminal case on the FSIA’s presumption of
        separateness under 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b), Yemen, we held that the pre-
        sumption of separateness was overcome, such that the instrumen-
        tality was not an independent entity from the sovereign, when the
        instrumentality “fail[ed] to provide any evidence of an independent
        entity” and “issu[ed] direct orders to terminate the contract.” 218
        F.3d at 1299; see Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba, 425
        U.S. 682, 695 (1976). Our sister circuits have since reﬁned the ex-
        tensive control inquiry required by the Supreme Court in Banco
        Para and have held that a sovereign exercises its control in such a
        way as to make the instrumentality its agent when the sovereign
        state “exercises signiﬁcant and repeated control over the instru-
        mentality’s day-to-day operations.” EM Ltd. v. Banco Cent. de la Re-
        publica Arg., 800 F.3d 78, 91 (2d Cir. 2015); see Hester Int’l Corp. v. Fed.
        Republic of Nigeria, 879 F.2d 170, 178 (5th Cir. 1989) (collecting cases
        holding failure to prove day-to-day control fails to overcome pre-
        sumption of juridical separateness).
               Appellees contend that the district court’s decision was cor-
        rect because the presumption of juridical separateness may be
        overcome only by evidence that the foreign sovereign “exercises
        signiﬁcant and repeated control over the instrumentality’s
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 19 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                         19

        day-to-day operations.” However, we have never speciﬁcally held
        that to overcome the presumption of juridical separateness a party
        is required to provide evidence that the foreign sovereign “exercises
        signiﬁcant and repeated control over the instrumentality’s
        day-to-day operations.” As discussed below, because AIS did not
        meet its burden of proving the existence of a principal-agent rela-
        tionship under Yemen, it is also unnecessary for us to consider at this
        time whether to adopt our sister circuits’ reﬁnements.
               AIS did not meet its burden because the additional testimo-
        nial evidence AIS presented at trial merely establishes that INDRHI
        was a governmental organization ﬁnanced by the state budget and
        that some of INDRHI’s Board and Management were appointed
        by the Dominican Republic’s Executive Branch. That is insuﬃcient
        under Yemen, because the parent must exercise “its control in a
        manner more direct than by voting a majority of the stock in the
        subsidiary or making appointments to the subsidiary’s Board of Di-
        rectors.” 218 F.3d at 1299 (quoting La Republica de Venezuela, 200
        F.3d at 849).
                Furthermore, INDRHI’s designated corporate representa-
        tive, Jose Raul Perez-Duran, testiﬁed extensively about INDRHI’s
        autonomy and separate status, which supports the conclusion that
        INDRHI, despite being a governmental organization, was not un-
        der the Dominican Republic’s operational control. That evidence
        focused on how INDRHI has its own bank accounts as well as ac-
        counting system, was ﬁnanced by the state budget and external re-
        sources, and how INDRHI’s executive director made all the
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1     Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 20 of 34

        20                    Opinion of the Court                 20-14058

        decisions concerning contracts, projects, personnel, and INDRHI’s
        budget. Mr. Duran also noted that apart from appointing
        INDRHI’s director, the President of the Dominican Republic had
        no function within INDRHI. These facts suﬃciently cut against
        AIS’s contention that INDRHI was under the President of the Do-
        minican Republic’s day-to-day operational control.
                Accordingly, we ﬁnd that substantial evidence supports the
        district court’s ﬁnding that Appellant failed to overcome the FSIA’s
        presumption that the Dominican Republic and INDRHI are sepa-
        rate entities, and thus, we conclude that the district court did not
        err in making this ﬁnding.
        B. The District Court’s Finding that the Dominican Republic
           Did Not Breach the Contract Is Supported by Substantial Ev-
           idence.
               Despite the district court correctly concluding that INDRHI
        and the Dominican Republic are separate, Appellant also disagrees
        with the district court’s ﬁnding and conclusion that the Dominican
        Republic did not itself, apart from INDRHI, breach the contract. It
        is Appellant’s theory that the Dominican Republic breached the
        contract by either (1) causing the Azua II project’s ﬁnancing delays
        or (2) because the President of the Dominican Republic ordered
        the contract to be terminated. Neither theory of the case with-
        stands scrutiny upon review of the entire record for the reasons
        stated below.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 21 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                         21

               1. The District Court’s Finding that the Dominican Re-
                  public Did Not Breach the Contract by Causing Azua
                  II’s Financing Delays Is Supported by Substantial Evi-
                  dence.
               In the district court’s ﬁndings of fact, the district court con-
        cluded that Azua II’s ﬁnancing delays were not attributable to any
        one party but were rather due to “bureaucratic delays and a com-
        plex approval system.” Appellant contends that this ﬁnding was
        clear error because the ﬁnancing delays were attributable to the
        Dominican Republic, and therefore, the Dominican Republic
        breached the contract.
               In support of its contention that the district court commit-
        ted clear error, Appellant highlights a letter from the Dominican
        Republic’s State Secretary of Finance, dated July 9, 2007. That let-
        ter was submitted in support of a request to extend the Final Dis-
        bursement Date. In that letter, the State Secretary of Finance
        acknowledged that the “reasons for the delay were mainly because
        of the spending restriction measures imposed by the Dominican
        Government,” which stemmed from a banking crisis that began in
        2003. Appellant also relies upon the district court’s ﬁnding that
        there was “no evidence that [AIS] caused any of the delays.” It is
        essentially AIS’s position that since the district court found that AIS
        was not the cause of the delays, and AIS has some evidence that
        supports the conclusion that the Dominican Republic was at fault,
        that the district court committed clear error by ignoring the July 9,
        2007 letter, and by ﬁnding that the delays are not attributable to any
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 22 of 34

        22                     Opinion of the Court                20-14058

        one party, “but were instead the result of bureaucratic delays and a
        complex approval system.”
                While it is true that no evidence was presented that AIS
        caused the delay in securing ﬁnancing, Appellant’s appeal and the-
        ory of the case disregard the timeline of events, the other evidence
        that was presented at trial, and the standard of review by which we
        are bound. In the present case, there was substantial evidence to
        support the district court’s ﬁnding that the delays are not attribut-
        able to any one party to the contract, “but were instead the result
        of bureaucratic delays and a complex approval system.” That evi-
        dence focused on how EX-IM’s attorneys, who were key players in
        securing ﬁnancing for the project, took months to respond to email
        and draft key documents, lost other documents, issued a letter of
        credit in the wrong amount, and required the Dominican Republic
        to amend and submit the Credit Agreement to the Dominican
        Congress on three separate occasions. That evidence also makes it
        clear that the Dominican Republic had continued to comply with
        its obligations under the contract because they continued to satisfy
        the conditions precedent in the Credit Agreement.
                Even if there is some evidence that the delays were attribut-
        able to the Dominican Republic as Appellant contends, Appellant’s
        argument focuses solely on the delay related to the third extension
        of the Final Disbursement Date. This argument is not compelling
        when examined within the entire timeline of the contract as the
        district court did. Appellant ignores the fact that the Parties con-
        tinued to perform under the contract during the prior extensions
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1     Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 23 of 34

        20-14058              Opinion of the Court                       23

        of the Final Disbursement Date. For example, even though it be-
        came clear in 2005 that ﬁnancing for the project was an issue, the
        majority of the actual construction work performed by AIS took
        place in 2007 and 2008—after the Credit Agreement’s initial Final
        Disbursement Date of October 15, 2005, had elapsed. AIS com-
        menced work on the AZUA II project in March 2004, and other
        than a three-month stop work order, the project continued without
        interruption until AIS ceased construction in August 2008. Recall
        that under the terms of the Purchase Agreement, funds could not
        be disbursed to Sun Land for further disbursement to AIS until EX-
        IM fully guaranteed the loan, which required EX-IM to issue a Let-
        ter of Credit identifying how Sun Land could disburse the funds.
        EX-IM did not even issue the Letter of Credit until April 2006, and
        the Final Disbursement Date was not adjusted until August 2006
        and again in March 2007. Based on the facts in the record, funds
        were available for the Azua II project for only a ﬁve-month period
        from May 2007 to October 2007. Yet, AIS continued working on
        the project from March 2004 until mid-2007 while funds were not
        available and did not cease construction on the project until August
        2008. AIS’s continued performance suggests that the Parties did
        not believe the ﬁnancing delays were substantial or cause for con-
        cern. AIS’s argument positing now that only the third ﬁnancing
        delay—which AIS attempts to lay exclusively at the feet of the Do-
        minican Republic—caused the ﬁnancial collapse of the Azua II pro-
        ject is not persuasive.
              Given that “[c]lear error is a highly deferential standard of
        review” and the “district court’s account of the evidence is
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 24 of 34

        24                     Opinion of the Court                  20-14058

        plausible in the light of the record viewed in its entirety,” we cannot
        say that the district court clearly erred in ﬁnding that the Domini-
        can Republic was not responsible for the Azua II project’s ﬁnancing
        delays, and we cannot reverse. Morrissette-Brown, 506 F.3d at 1319
        (second quote quoting Anderson, 470 U.S. at 573–74).
               2. The District Court’s Finding that the Dominican Re-
                  public Complied with Its Obligations under the Con-
                  tract Is Supported by Substantial Evidence.
               In the district court’s ﬁndings of fact, it concluded that the
        Dominican Republic had fulﬁlled its obligations pursuant to the
        contract by submitting approvals for work performed by AIS in
        compliance with the Credit Agreement, and therefore did not
        breach the contract. Appellant contends that this ﬁnding was clear
        error, because, according to AIS, the Dominican Republic’s then-
        President, Leonel Fernandez, ordered INDRHI to terminate the
        contract for political reasons.
               In support of this contention, Appellant highlights the fol-
        lowing ﬁve pieces of evidence that Appellant claims were unrebut-
        ted: (1) a conversation AIS’s President, Julio Morales Perez, had
        with then-President Fernandez of the Dominican Republic in
        March 2009, in which President Fernandez allegedly stated he did
        not like Sun Land and that “under these conditions, the Dominican
        State will not continue the work”; (2) the testimony of Sun Land’s
        principal, Daniel Mejia, that President Fernandez “made the deci-
        sion [to] cancel[ ] the transaction anyway[s]”; (3) the President of
        the Florida Export Finance Corporation, Steve Fancher’s, opinion
        that the President of the Dominican Republic killed the deal for
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 25 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                         25

        political reasons; (4) a University of Utah Memorandum stating
        that the Dominican Republic froze the project in December 2008;
        and (5) the fact that the Dominican Republic later awarded the
        Azua II contract to CQG. It is Appellant’s position that since this
        evidence was uncontested, the district court must have ignored it
        and therefore committed clear error.
                Appellant’s argument that the district court “ignored” the
        evidence is demonstratively false. The district court considered this
        evidence twice, directly addressing it in its Findings of Fact as well
        as in its Order on Appellant’s Motion for Reconsideration. In the
        district court’s ﬁndings of fact, it concluded that some of the evi-
        dence Appellant now cites was hearsay and “insuﬃcient to support
        [the] ﬁnding that the Dominican Republic breached the Contract.”
        While the district court later admitted and considered Julio Mo-
        rales Perez’s testimony, Stephen Fancher’s testimony, and the Utah
        State University memorandum, as non-hearsay on Appellant’s Mo-
        tion for Reconsideration, the district court still determined that Ap-
        pellant’s evidence was insuﬃcient to establish that the Dominican
        Republic had breached the contract when considered by the district
        court in its analysis.
              Furthermore, upon examination of the evidence AIS cites in
        context, we cannot say that the district court’s decision not to credit
        or give considerable weight to that evidence was inappropriate.
        For example, the district court’s decision not to credit the testi-
        mony of Sun Land’s principal, Daniel Mejia, that President Fernan-
        dez “made the decision [to] cancel[ ] the transaction anyway[s]”
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 26 of 34

        26                     Opinion of the Court                  20-14058

        was appropriate, because that testimony pertained to an entirely
        diﬀerent and separate project within the Dominican Republic that
        Sun Land had ﬁnanced. The district court’s decision not to credit
        or give great weight to AIS’s President Julio Morales Perez’s testi-
        mony, that President Fernandez stated in March 2009 that he did
        not like Sun Land and that “under these conditions, the Dominican
        State will not continue the work”, was appropriate because the
        contract had already been terminated by INDRHI months before.
        The University of Utah Memorandum suﬀers from the same de-
        fect because it was written months after the fact, and AIS had al-
        ready ceased construction in August 2008, months before the Do-
        minican Republic allegedly “froze” the Azua II project in Decem-
        ber 2008. Furthermore, the fact that the Dominican Republic
        awarded a contract for Azua to CQG is not evidence that the Do-
        minican Republic’s president terminated the former contract, be-
        cause the CQG contract was entered into years after the contract
        with AIS had been terminated. Finally, Steven Fancher provided no
        testimony that would support his opinion that President Fernandez
        killed the deal for political reasons. As such, even if it was in fact
        unrebutted, as Appellant contends, the district court did not need
        to credit or give weight to this evidence as it was not otherwise
        supported and there was other substantial evidence to support the
        trial court’s ﬁnding. See Hearn v. McKay, 603 F.3d 897, 904 (11th Cir.
        2010) (“It is the exclusive province of the judge in non-jury trials to
        assess the credibility of witnesses and to assign weight to their tes-
        timony.” (citation, brackets, and quotation marks omitted)); United
        States v. Brown, 415 F.3d 1257, 1270 (11th Cir. 2005) (“Questions
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023      Page: 27 of 34

        20-14058                Opinion of the Court                         27

        about the weight given to testimony, as distinguished from the is-
        sue of its admissibility, are for the factﬁnder.”)
               In addition, the district court’s ﬁnding that the Dominican
        Republic did not breach the contract because it fulﬁlled its obliga-
        tions pursuant to the contract is supported by substantial evidence.
        That evidence centered on how the Third Amendment to the
        Credit Agreement was presented to then-President Leonel Fernan-
        dez for formal submission to the Dominican Republic Congress on
        September 30, 2008, as well as the fact that the Dominican Republic
        approved payment of all AIS’s work invoices. While it is unclear
        whether the Third Amendment to the Credit Agreement was ever
        formally submitted to the Dominican Republic Congress, as stated
        supra, congressional ratiﬁcation became a moot issue after Sun-
        Trust withdrew from Azua II. Also, as noted, the district court
        viewed the action of the Parties regarding ﬁnancing and extensions
        through the contract’s termination.
               As such, given that the district court was in the best place to
        judge the witnesses’ credibility, and the district court’s account of
        the evidence is plausible in light of the record viewed in its entirety,
        the district court’s ﬁnding that the Dominican Republic did not
        breach the contract is not clearly erroneous. Morrissette-Brown, 506
        F.3d at 1319.
        C. The District Court’s Determination of Damages Is Sup-
           ported by Substantial Evidence.
              Finally, Appellant contends that the district court committed
        clear error and abused its discretion when it only awarded
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 28 of 34

        28                     Opinion of the Court                20-14058

        Appellant $576,842.00 in damages for lost proﬁts. Appellant con-
        tends that the district court committed clear error and abused its
        discretion for the following three (3) reasons. First, the district
        court abused its discretion by ignoring proper methods of calculat-
        ing lost proﬁts. Second, the district court committed clear error by
        ignoring evidence of AIS’s delay damages. Finally, the district court
        abused its discretion by refusing to award AIS damages from
        INDRHI for unpaid invoices.
               AIS’s three (3) reasons once again mistake the actual issues
        presently on appeal, which are: (1) whether the district court’s dam-
        ages determinations are supported by substantial evidence and cor-
        rect application of law as to damages; and (2) whether the district
        court correctly interpreted the contract when it declined to award
        AIS damages for unpaid invoices.
                The district court’s damages determinations are supported
        because AIS presented wholly inadequate evidentiary support for
        its claims of lost proﬁts and alleged delay damages. Therefore, the
        district court’s decision to credit Appellees’ damages expert was ap-
        propriate. The district court also correctly interpreted the contract
        as it pertained to who was responsible for AIS’s unpaid invoices.
              1. The District Court’s Damages Determinations Are
                 Supported by Substantial Evidence.
               Under Florida law, “evidence as to the amount of damages
        cannot be based on speculation or conjecture, but must be proven
        with certainty.” Sun Life Assurance Co. of Can. v. Imperial Premium
        Fin., LLC, 904 F.3d 1197, 1222 (11th Cir. 2018) (citation and
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 29 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                       29

        quotation marks omitted). In this case, Appellant did not establish
        with certainty its lost proﬁt damages or delay damages. In contrast,
        Appellees presented evidence that supported their determination
        of lost proﬁts and delay damages. As such, even though there are
        two permissible views of the evidence in this case, given that only
        one view of the evidence was suﬃciently supported, the district
        court’s choice to credit Appellee’s expert cannot be clearly errone-
        ous. Morrissette-Brown, 506 F.3d at 1319.
                     a. The District Court Did Not Err in its Lost Prof-
                        its Findings of Fact.
               There are “two generally recognized methods of proving
        lost proﬁts: (1) the before and after theory and (2) the yardstick
        test.” G.M. Brod & Co. v. U.S. Home Corp., 759 F.2d 1526, 1538 (11th
        Cir. 1985) (quoting Lehrman v. Gulf Oil Corp., 500 F.2d 659, 667 (5th
        Cir. 1974)). The before and after theory compares a plaintiﬀ’s prof-
        its recorded prior to the breach (or statutory violation as was the
        case in G.M. Brod) with those after the breach or anticipated proﬁts.
        Id. Both Parties here purported to employ this method for deter-
        mining Appellant’s lost proﬁt damages.
               To establish its lost proﬁts and delay damages, AIS relied
        upon the testimony of Mr. Ben Nolan, an engineering, construc-
        tion, and project management expert. Mr. Nolan conceded that it
        was “pretty likely” that in calculating AIS’s lost proﬁts, he and his
        employee, Mr. Solomon, a certiﬁed public accountant, who did not
        provide testimony or sit for a deposition, had only actually consid-
        ered one ﬁnancial document— AIS’s 2007 ﬁnancial statement pre-
        pared by Rosillo & Associates. Mr. Nolan and his employee only
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1     Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 30 of 34

        30                    Opinion of the Court                20-14058

        relied upon that one document because AIS did not produce any
        general ledgers, cost/payroll reports, evidence of purchase orders,
        invoices, payments, or any other supporting transactional docu-
        ments during discovery, and therefore, Mr. Nolan was “always look-
        ing for more documents.”
               In contrast, Appellees’ expert, Mr. Daniel Hughes, was a cer-
        tiﬁed public accountant who calculated damages utilizing the be-
        fore and after theory. Unlike Mr. Nolan, Mr. Hughes also relied
        upon AIS’s 2006 ﬁnancial statement, which Mr. Nolan had omitted
        from his report when calculating AIS’s damages. This resulted in
        Mr. Hughes estimating that AIS’s total proﬁt, had the project been
        completed on schedule, would have been $3,229,600.00, after com-
        paring AIS’s operating expenses with its gross proﬁt in 2006 and
        2007. Mr. Hughes was then able to utilize the “beneﬁt of the bar-
        gain” approach to calculate AIS’s lost proﬁts based on what the Par-
        ties anticipated, and he calculated those lost proﬁts through 2008
        to be $576,842.00.
                Mr. Hughes was also utilized to impeach the testimony of
        Mr. Nolan and testiﬁed that Mr. Nolan’s calculations had not fol-
        lowed the general standards of the accounting profession, speciﬁ-
        cally in regard to management representation. Mr. Nolan’s calcu-
        lations had not followed the standards of the accounting profes-
        sion, because Mr. Nolan’s assumptions about damages, which were
        based on management representation, were not independently val-
        idated, or conﬁrmed to be true and accurate or suﬃciently sup-
        ported by the record evidence.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 31 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                       31

               As such, we cannot ﬁnd that the district court committed
        clear error in deciding to credit Appellees’ expert over Appellant’s,
        when determining damages, speciﬁcally lost proﬁts, where both
        Parties purported to use the same accounting method. The district
        court did not err, because AIS failed to provide evidence from
        which the amount of its lost proﬁt damages could be reasonably
        and reliably ascertained. The district court found Appellees’ calcu-
        lations should be accepted, and substantial evidence supports its
        ﬁnding.
                     b. The District Court Did Not Err in its Delay
                        Damages Findings of Fact.
               Appellant next contends that the district court committed
        clear error when it declined to award AIS delay damages. Appellant
        contends that it is entitled to delay damages because Appellees de-
        layed the construction under the contract and because of that de-
        lay, Appellant’s operating costs increased.
               The district court declined to award AIS delay damages, be-
        cause AIS failed to provide evidence of a sustained loss attributable
        to INDRHI’s delay and any additional expense incurred because of
        the delay was already included in the invoices that had been sub-
        mitted to INDRHI for approval. Accordingly, the district court con-
        cluded that these additional operating costs had already been fac-
        tored into the invoices submitted by AIS and that neither AIS nor
        Sun Land was entitled to delay damages from INDRHI or the Do-
        minican Republic.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023    Page: 32 of 34

        32                     Opinion of the Court                20-14058

               Appellant contends that the district court erred because Ap-
        pellant now claims that it presented competent evidence that AIS
        suﬀered $1,880,268.00 in delay damages resulting from INDRHI’s
        breach of contract. Appellant’s argument fails, however, because
        upon review of the record in its entirety, we note that AIS never
        presented documentary evidence of delay damages in the amount
        of $1,880,268.00 to the district court. Rather, AIS now attempts to
        recharacterize damages that were denied for “work performed” as
        delay damages.
               As such, the district court did not clearly err when it deter-
        mined that AIS was not entitled to delay damages, because it found
        that any delay damages were accounted for in the approved work
        invoices. Appellant presents no separate support for delay damages
        apart from its unpaid work reports.
              2. The District Court Did Not Abuse Its Discretion
                 When It Found that Sun Land Was Responsible for
                 AIS’s Unpaid Invoices.
               Finally, Appellant contends that the district court abused its
        discretion when it concluded that payment on unpaid work in-
        voices was the responsibility of Sun Land, not Appellees. Appellant
        contends that the district court abused its discretion because it
        acknowledged that AIS had not been paid for certain work invoices,
        but then declined to order INDRHI or the Dominican Republic to
        pay AIS.
              The district court declined to order Appellees to pay AIS, be-
        cause Sun Land had already received funds to cover those expenses
USCA11 Case: 20-14058     Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 33 of 34

        20-14058               Opinion of the Court                        33

        from SunTrust but failed to remit them to AIS. We note that Ap-
        pellant’s expert similarly concluded that “Sun Land and AIS have
        Excess Funds” and that the “[Appellees] owe $0 to AIS for Unpaid
        Invoices.” Despite the district court agreeing with its own expert’s
        conclusions, Appellant contends that the district court abused its
        discretion by not ordering Appellees to pay AIS for the work in-
        voices. As this issue turns upon the interpretation of the contract,
        the standard of review is de novo. HGI Assocs., Inc., 427 F.3d at 873.
               Appellant contends that under the terms of the Purchase
        Agreement, the Dominican Republic had the contractual obliga-
        tion to pay for the work, not Sun Land. Appellant’s argument fails
        because the Purchase Agreement and the Protocol together form
        the contract that is at the center of this dispute. When the Pur-
        chase Agreement and the Protocol are examined together, it is clear
        the responsibility for the unpaid invoices lies with Sun Land.
              The responsibility for the unpaid invoices lies with Sun Land
        because, under the terms of the Protocol, INDRHI and the Domin-
        ican Republic were required to review AIS’s invoices, and if ap-
        proved, transmit them with the appropriate approval documents to
        Sun Land. Sun Land was then required to submit those approval
        documents to the lender, SunTrust. SunTrust was then required to
        disburse funds to Sun Land under the terms of the Purchase Agree-
        ment, and as stated supra, the funds could only be disbursed to Sun
        Land. Once Sun Land took that disbursement from SunTrust, Sun
        Land became obligated to pay AIS.
USCA11 Case: 20-14058      Document: 81-1      Date Filed: 12/28/2023     Page: 34 of 34

        34                     Opinion of the Court                  20-14058

               Given that evidence was presented that INDRHI had ap-
        proved the work invoices for payment as well as directed Sun Land
        to pay AIS and that excess funds had already been disbursed to Sun
        Land, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it con-
        cluded that responsibility for the unpaid invoices lay with Sun
        Land, after INDRHI had approved them for payment and Sun Land
        received the funds meant to pay AIS’s invoices from SunTrust.
                                  CONCLUSION
                In conclusion: (A) substantial evidence supports the district
        court’s ﬁndings of fact and conclusions of law that Appellant failed
        to overcome the FSIA’s presumption that the Dominican Republic
        and INDRHI are separate entities, and thus, we conclude that the
        district court did not err in making this ﬁnding; (B) substantial evi-
        dence supports the district court’s ﬁndings of fact that the Domin-
        ican Republic did not separately breach the contract itself, such
        ﬁndings are plausible in light of the record and thus, the district
        court did not clearly err in ﬁnding that the Dominican Republic
        was not liable to AIS for breach of contract; and (C) substantial ev-
        idence supports the district court’s ﬁndings of fact and determina-
        tions of credibility of witnesses in calculating all damages owed to
        AIS and in determining that neither the Dominican Republic nor
        INDRHI is responsible for paying AIS’s unpaid invoices and thus,
        the district court did not abuse its discretion in its determination of
        the amount of damages awarded to AIS. Accordingly, we AFFIRM.