The former majority shareholders of Industria Nacional de Clavos y Alambres de Puas, S.A. (INCA), a large Nicaraguan steel company, sought to recover from Harlow & Jones, Inc. (H & J), a U.S. steel company, the purchase price of a shipment of undelivered steel billets. Following the Sandinista revolution, the Nicaraguan Government had “intervened” in INCA and it, too, demanded the funds that H & J interpleaded into the court. The district court rejected the claim of the Sandinista Government and allocated the funds to the benefit of all parties who held shares in the company prior to the intervention. On cross-appeals by the claimants, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (per Kaufman, J.) affirmed in part and reversed in part, and held: the act of state doctrine does not bar judicial resolution of the dispute over the funds; the actions of the Sandinista Government amounted to a taking without compensation that will not be enforced by the U.S. courts; and the district court’s allocation of pro rata shares for all of the preintervention stockholders, including minority interests, was equitable.

Appellant, Joseph Azar, appealed the district court’s denial of his motion to quash a subpoena obtained by the U.S. Department of Justice at the request of the Minister of Legal Affairs of Trinidad and Tobago. The United States had sought the subpoena to obtain Azar’s Florida bank records as part of a criminal investigation in Trinidad and Tobago. On review, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit (per Fay, J.) affirmed the district court’s decision and held that 28 U.S.C. §1782 authorized the judicial assistance sought by the Minister of Legal Affairs even though there was no pending proceeding in Trinidad and Tobago.

Plaintiff Zedan, an American citizen, brought suit in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for breach of a contract guaranteeing wages and profits. While performance under the contract occurred in Saudi Arabia, plaintiff alleged that the jurisdictional requirements under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (28 U.S.C. §§1330, 1602-1611 (1982)) (FSIA) were satisfied by a recruitment call in California from a representative of the royal overseer of a private Saudi company. The district court granted the Saudi motion to dismiss. On appeal, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit (per Silberman, J.) unanimously affirmed and held: (1) that the telephone call did not have the requisite substantiality of contact with the United States; (2) that it was not sufficient to form the basis of a cause of action; and (3) that the alleged breach did not have sufficient direct effect in the United States to satisfy the exceptions to immunity under the FSIA.

Plaintiff, a Haitian seeking asylum in the United States, filed a petition for habeas corpus in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, to overturn a denial of asylum by both an immigration judge and the Board of Immigration Appeals (BIA). The plaintiff sought asylum under section 101(a)(42)(A) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. §1101(a)(42)(A) (1982)) (INA) on the basis of “persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” The district court upheld the BIA decision, which allowed deportation of the plaintiff because the incidents of persecution in Haiti were economically rather than politically motivated. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (per Tang, J.) reversed, holding that the plaintiff had demonstrated persecution based on political opinion by showing a pattern of extortion by government officials, and remanded for a determination of whether the plaintiff would be persecuted upon his return to Haiti.

Plaintiff, the United States, brought an action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York against the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and four individuals seeking an injunction to close the PLO’s Permanent Observer Mission (Mission) to the United Nations as violative of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987 (ATA). The district court (per Palmieri, J.) entered summary judgment for defendants and held: (1) the ATA does not require the closure of the PLO’s Mission to the United Nations; (2) the status of the PLO’s Mission, an invitee of the United Nations, is protected by the Agreement Between the United States and the United Nations Regarding the Headquarters of the United Nations (Headquarters Agreement); and (3) Congress did not intend the ATA to supersede the Headquarters Agreement.