Seaboard Marine Ltd. v. Odette Blanco De Fernandez, aka Blanco Rosell

Title III of the Helms-Burton Act creates a right of action against businesses that traffic in property confiscated by the Cuban government. See 22 U.S.C. §§ 6023, 6082. In the decision below, the Eleventh Circuit stretched the Act’s text beyond its breaking point: the court of appeals held that shipping companies that, in accordance with federal regulations, lawfully carry agricultural commodities from the U.S. to Cuba could be traffickers, each of whom owes Respondent personally hundreds of millions of dollars, based on her theory that Cuba’s principal container terminal partially extends onto land once owned by a Cuban corporation in which she claims to be the lone surviving shareholder. The questions presented are:

1. Does the Helms-Burton Act abrograte basic corporate law and permit shareholders to maintain Title III actions based on confiscated corporate property the shareholders never personally owned?

2. Does delivering cargo to a facility partially constructed atop confiscated land qualify as trafficking in confiscated property under the Act?

3. Do companies that lawfully carry agricultural commodities from the U.S. to Cuba engage in lawful travel under the Act?