Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A., et al. v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co.

The act-of-state doctrine “precludes the courts of this country from inquiring into the validity of the public acts a recognized foreign sovereign power committed within its own territory.” Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, 401 (1964). In Sabbatino, this Court held that doctrine barred U.S. courts from examining the validity of a Cuban government instrumentality’s claim to funds held in escrow in New York, even though they were attributable to the sale of sugar allegedly expropriated in violation of international law. Id. at 401-407, 428. According to the Court, the fact that the expropriated sugar’s sale proceeds were “brought into this country” did not provide a basis for a U.S. “[j]udicial determination[] of invalidity of [the Cuban government’s] title.” Id. at 431. In response to Sabbatino, Congress enacted the “Second Hickenlooper Amendment,” which bars a court from applying the act-of-state doctrine “in a case in which a claim of title or other right to property is asserted by any party including a foreign state * * * based upon (or traced through) a confiscation or other taking * * * by an act of that state in violation of the principles of international law.” 22 U.S.C. § 2370(e)(2). That provision “permit[s] adjudication of claims the Sabbatino decision had avoided.” Republic of Hungary v. Simon, 604 U.S. 115, 121 (2025) (citation omitted). The question presented is: Whether a claim for damages as compensation for a foreign taking of property triggers 22 U.S.C. § 2370(e)(2)’s exception to the act-of-state doctrine where neither the expropriated property nor any property exchanged for it has entered the United States. (I)