Fiona Havlish, et al. v. The Taliban, et al.

Section 201(a) of the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002 (“TRIA”) provides that Notwithstanding any other provision of law, . . . in every case in which a person has obtained a judgment against a terrorist party on a claim based upon an act of terrorism . . . the blocked assets of that terrorist party (including the blocked assets of any agency or instrumentality of that terrorist party) shall be subject to execution. The Second Circuit held—over strong dissents at both the panel and en banc stages—that assets are subject to execution by terrorism victims only if the assets’ owner was an agency or instrumentality of a terrorist party at the time the assets were blocked. This rule ignores the plain language of the statute and protects billions of dollars of Taliban assets from execution by the families of victims of 9/11 and other notorious terrorist attacks. These cases thus present the following question: Under the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act, does a plaintiff’s right to execute on blocked assets depend on whether the assets’ owner was a terrorist party or its agency or instrumentality at the time the assets were blocked?