93 how US courts may exercise personal jurisdiction over foreign states. Antrix Corporation, the commercial arm of India’s Department of Space, signed an agreement with Devas Multimedia to lease satellite capacity. After the Indian Government determined it needed greater satellite capacity for itself, Antrix terminated the contract under its force majeure clause. Devas invoked the contract’s arbitration provision, and a three-member arbitral panel unanimously awarded Devas $562.5 million in damages plus interest. After successfully confirming the award in France and the United Kingdom, Devas sought confirmation in a US federal court, which entered a $1.29 billion judgment against Antrix. The Ninth Circuit reversed, however, holding that the FSIA required not only an applicable immunity exception and proper service but also a traditional “minimum contacts” analysis under International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 US 310 (1945). Because Antrix’s connections to the United States were slim, the appellate court found personal jurisdiction lacking— even though it did not question that Antrix qualified as a “foreign state” under the FSIA, that an immunity exception applied, or that service was proper. The Court’s Holding In a unanimous opinion by Justice Alito, the Supreme Court reversed. The Court held that personal jurisdiction exists under §1330(b) of the FSIA whenever an immunity exception applies and service is proper— full stop. The FSIA’s personal-jurisdiction provision imposes exactly two requirements: (1) subject-matter jurisdiction, which exists when an immunity exception applies, and (2) proper service under §1608. “Notably absent from the provision is any reference to ‘minimum contacts,’” Justice Alito wrote, and “we decline to add what Congress left out, as the FSIA was supposed to ‘clarify the governing standards,’ not hide the ball.” The Court acknowledged that the FSIA’s immunity exceptions themselves require varying degrees of domestic contact, but emphasized that this is because “the exceptions Congress wrote happen to meet that standard, not because the Act’s personaljurisdiction provision secretly incorporated the Court’s due-process cases.” Reading an additional minimum-contacts requirement into the statute would “weaken the link Congress forged” among the Act’s tethered immunity and jurisdictional provisions and “create a gap in the Act’s otherwise ‘comprehensive framework.’” The Court expressly declined to reach three alternative arguments raised by Antrix—whether the Fifth Amendment itself requires minimum contacts, whether the claims fell within the arbitration exception, and whether the suit should be dismissed under forum non conveniens—leaving those issues for the Ninth Circuit on remand. Broader Significance For practitioners in international arbitration—a field of particular importance in Israel, which has an active arbitration community and is party to the New York Convention—CC/Devas is a watershed. The decision removes a significant obstacle to enforcing arbitral awards against foreign sovereigns in US courts. Under the Ninth Circuit’s prior rule, even where an immunity exception clearly applied, a plaintiff might still be denied jurisdiction because the foreign state lacked sufficient US contacts. The Supreme Court has now clarified that the FSIA’s immunity exceptions are the jurisdictional gatekeepers: if a plaintiff clears that threshold and serves the defendant properly, personal jurisdiction follows automatically. The practical implications are substantial. Parties who have prevailed in international arbitrations against state-owned entities or sovereign instrumentalities now have a clearer, more reliable pathway to enforce their awards in the United States—one of the most important enforcement jurisdictions in the world. The case also serves as a reminder that the FSIA is a “comprehensive” statutory scheme that displaces common-law doctrines, an observation that has analogs in Israeli law, where statutory frameworks governing sovereign immunity and foreign judgments similarly define the boundaries of judicial authority. It bears noting, however, that the decision does not resolve every question. The Court left open whether the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause independently requires minimum contacts in FSIA cases—a constitutional question that could yet impose limits on jurisdiction in future litigation. 3. Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump: The Taxing Power, Emergency Authority, and the Limits of Presidential Tariff Power Background Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump arrived at the Supreme Court amid one of the more controversial and consequential economic policy debates in modern American history and a centerpiece of the Trump Administration’s economic policy. Shortly after taking office, President Trump declared national emergencies related to drug trafficking from Canada, Mexico, and China, and to “large and persistent” trade deficits. Invoking the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (“IEEPA”), the President imposed sweeping tariffs—25% on most Canadian and Mexican imports, US — INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION
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