Hello, this is R.J. Deakin, reading the Supreme Court of the United States opinion syllabus in Havana Docks Corporation versus Royal Caribbean Cruises Limited. Search Yari to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, argued February 23rd, 2026, and decided May 21st, 2026. In 1928, the United States-based Havana Docks Corporation acquired from the Cuban government a property interest in the development and operation of docks at the Port of Havana. That property interest, a usurfactory concession, was time limited and set to expire in 2004. The Cuban government agreed that if expropriated uh if it, the Cuban government, expropriated the docks before 2004, it would compensate Havana docks for the value of the works it had constructed. After Fidel Castro seized power in 1959, the new Cuban government decreed that it would forcibly take American-owned properties and enterprises in Cuba and specifically identified Havana Docks. As relevant here, the Cuban government seized, without compensation, the docks that Havana Docks had constructed and its property interest in those docks. Havana Docs filed a claim with the Foreign Claim Settlement Commission, which certified about $9 million in losses, plus 6% annual interest. Despite these certified losses, Havana Docks lacked any means to obtain compensation. That began to change. In 1996, when Congress enacted the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act, 22 USC section 6021 et sec, which creates a private right of action for United States nationals who own claims to property which was confiscated by the Cuban government on or after January 1st, 1959, Section 6082A1 CAPA. Title III of the Act imposes liability on those who knowingly and intentionally traffic in such confiscated property. Sections 6023 at 13 and CAP AI and II. The Act authorizes the President to suspend the Title III right of action. That's sections 6085 C1 and 2. And presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama continuously suspended the right of action from its effective date onward. President Trump allowed the suspension of the Title III right of action to expire in May of 2019. From 2016 to 2019, four commercial cruise lines, Royal Caribbean cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Carnival Corporation, and MSC cruises transported nearly a million paid passengers to Cuba, using the docks that Havana Docks built to embark and disembark their passengers. In 2019, Havana Docks invoked Title III and sued the cruise lines in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The cruise lines argued they were not liable because Havana Docks's property interest would have expired in 2004, even absent confiscation. The District Court rejected that argument and entered summary judgment against all four cruise lines, awarding Havana Docks more than $100 million from each. A divided panel of the 11th Circuit reversed. In its view, a defendant is liable for trafficking in confiscated property only if its actions would have interfered with the plaintiff's property interest had there been no confiscation. On that view, because Havana Dox's concession would have expired before 2016, the Cruise Line's challenged conduct from 2016 to 2019 did not constitute trafficking. Decision is vacated and remanded. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court. This could be interesting. The cruise line's use of the docks is sufficient to establish that they used property which was confiscated by the Cuban government. Havana Docks is not required to establish that the cruise lines trafficked in Havana Docks's property interest. Title III generally makes any person who traffics in property which was confiscated by the Cuban government liable to any United States national who owns the claim to such property. Section sixty eighty two A one CAPA This dispute turns on whether the relevant property which was confiscated must be Havana Dox's property interest in the docks, the concession, or whether it could instead be the docks themselves. Under the plain text of Title III, property which was confiscated can refer to the physical property in which the plaintiff had an interest and not just the interest itself. Title III makes entities liable for trafficking in any property and any interest therein that the Cuban government confiscated. Sections 6023 at 12A and 6082 at A1 CAPA. And the Act's definition of property makes clear that the Act imposes liability for trafficking of both physical property and property interests. The term any property includes physical things, as the court recognized when it previously considered Fidel Castro's expropriations and noted that the Cuban government nationalized by force expropriation property in which American nationals had an interest. That's uh Banco Nacional di Cuba versus Sabatino. Probably got that wrong. The relevant property which was confiscated is therefore not limited to the plaintiff's interest in that property. It can refer to the physical property in which the plaintiff had an interest when the Cuban government seized control of it after January first, nineteen fifty-nine. That's uh section 6023 at four capay. Confiscated property is, as it were, tainted off limits, such that anyone who uses the property can be liable to those who had any interest in the tainted property. On that understanding of property, Havana Docs has shown that the cruise lines used confiscated property in which Havana Docs had a property interest and to which it owns a claim. The docks are property which was confiscated. Because Havana Docks established that the Cuban government confiscated those docks without compensation when Castro's forces physically took possession of the docks and expelled Havana Docks's agents in 1960. The cruise lines used or engaged in commercial activity using the docks. Sections 6023 at 13 Cap AI and II. When they transported nearly a million paying passengers to Cuba without authorization of Havana Docks, section 6023 at 13A. Finally, Havana Docks is a United States national who owns the claim to the confiscated docks. That's Section 6082 A1 CAPA. Section 6083 A1. The Court of Appeals is an analysis, and the Cruise Line's arguments conflict with Title III's text. The Court of Appeals interpreted the act to require a counterfactual analysis, assuming that there had been no confiscation of the owner's property interest. The way to give effect to the statutory language traffics in property which was confiscated, the court said is to view the property interest at issue in a Title III action as if there had been no expropriation in the and then determine whether the alleged conduct constituted trafficking in that interest. That counterfactual approach rested on the premise that property could refer only to present property interests, but this approach is a is difficult to understand and apply, and would foreclose liability in cases where the text demands it. If the approach requires courts to assume that the original rights holder retained his legal rights, it would read out of the act cases of trafficking that should be in the heartland of Title III, such as when companies sell and purchase confiscated property interests. Title III is instead simply an anti-trafficking right of action that recognizes that the effect of the Cuban government's expropriation was the destruction of the plaintiff's interest in the property. It then provides a right to compensation based on the plaintiff's former property interest from those who later traffic in the property and thereby help to support the communist Cuban government. The Cruise Lines' argument that the Cuban government did not confiscate the docks, but only the concession fails. The Cruise Lines' argument that the Cuban government did not confiscate the docks, comma, but only the concession fails. The Act defines confiscation to include the seizure of control of property. Sections sixty twenty-three four CAPA. And when the armed agents physically occupied the dock facilities, they seized control of the docks. Before the seizure, Havana Docks was in possession of the works. After the seizure, the Cuban government stopped Havana Docks from operating, using, enjoying, possessing, or otherwise controlling the docks. The Cuban government thereby extinguished Havana Docks's concession and physically occupied the docks. And those actions constitute confiscation of the docks under Title III. Because the Court of Appeals wrongfully concluded that the cruise lines did not use the confiscated property to which Havana Docks owned the claim, it did not reach the cruise lines' remaining arguments against liability. Those arguments are not before the court, and the court does not address them. The decision below is vacated and remanded. Justice Thomas delivered the opinion of the court in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito Sotomayor, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Jackson joined. Justice Sotomayor filed a concurring opinion in which Justice Kavanaugh joined. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion. Thanks for listening. Brett and Nazam. They're cool. I see they've recorded a couple I have not gotten to listen to yet.