Michael Bennett v. Bank Melli

Congress has enacted two statutes to help victims of terrorism collect on money judgments against the foreign states responsible for sponsoring the attacks. We consider whether victims can collect from an instrumentality of a state that has sponsored terrorism when the instrumentality is a separate juridical entity that wasn’t a party to the underlying lawsuit.

I. Background

The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) is the sole basis for jurisdiction over foreign states in U.S. courts. 28 U.S.C. § 1330 . Under the FSIA, foreign sovereigns are generally immune from jurisdiction, except for a few carefully delineated exceptions. One such exception is for claims arising out of acts of state-sponsored terrorism. See id. § 1605A.

Four groups of individuals — the Bennett, Greenbaum, Acosta and Heiser creditors — hold separate judgments obtained in U.S. courts against the Republic of Iran, based on various terrorist attacks that occurred between 1990 and 2002. The Bennett creditors are owed almost $13 million in damages for Iran’s role in the 2002 bombing of a cafeteria at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. The Greenbaum creditors are owed almost $20 million for a 2001 bombing…