Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

US Supreme Court clarifies FSIA personal jurisdiction: no minimum contacts; Devas v Antrix revived to enforce US$1.3bn arbitral award

Published on: 09 June 2025

Published by a Law360 reporter

Legal News

Article summary

Ruling unanimously, the US justices held that, under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), courts possess personal jurisdiction whenever an immunity exception applies and the defendant has been duly served. They added that the FSIA does not oblige courts to undertake the ‘minimum contacts’ analysis — a jurisdictional test assessing whether a non-resident defendant has sufficient ties to the US — and observed that the statute contains no reference to ‘minimum contacts’. As Justice Samuel Alito wrote, Congress omitted any such requirement, and the Act was intended to clarify the governing standards rather than conceal them. The court therefore reversed and remanded the case to the Ninth Circuit. The dispute arises from efforts by satellite communications company Devas Multimedia Pvt Ltd and its shareholders to enforce a US$1.3bn arbitral award against Antrix Corp Ltd, the state-owned commercial division of India’s space agency, following a set-aside telecommunications deal...

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