Hello, this is RJ Deakin, reading the Supreme Court of United States opinion syllabus in Exxon Mobil Corporation versus Corporacion Simx SA Cuba et al. Sertiari to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argued February 23, 2026, and decided June 23rd, 2026. In 1960, after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba, the Cuban government confiscated many foreign-owned assets, including Exxon's oil refinery terminals, packaging plants, and more than a hundred service stations. Since then, two Cuban government-owned companies, Union Cuba Petroleo C U P E T, and Corporation Cimex SA Cuba Cimex have operated and profited from Exxon's expropriated assets. Exxon had no good way to sue the Cuban government entities and seek compensation for its confiscated property until Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Helms Burton Act in 1996. As relevant here, the Act created a private right of action for U.S. nationals whose property was confiscated by the Cuban government against any person that traffics in the confiscated property. That's 22 USC Section 6082 A1 Cap A, with person defined to include any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state. Section 602311. Exxon sued CUPET, Simics, and later CIMEX's Panamanian alter ego under the Helms Burton Act in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, seeking more than one billion dollars in damages. The Cuban government-owned companies moved to dismiss, asserting immunity under the Generally Applicable Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, FSIA. Exxon countered that the Helms Burton Act itself waived the defendants' sovereign immunity, and the district court sided with the Cuban government defendants, and a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court held decision below is uh vacated and are reversed and remanded. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court. The Helms Burton Act itself abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities. Plaintiffs who sue Cuban agencies or instrumentalities under the Act need not also satisfy one of FSIA's enumerated exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity. A congressional waiver of sovereign immunity must be clearly discernible from the sum total of Congress's work. That's Department of Agricultural, Rural Development, Rural Housing Service versus Kurtz. 601 US 42. Four points taken together lead to the conclusion that the Helms Burton Act clearly abrogated the foreign sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities. First, under this court's precedence, a statute creating a cause of action that explicitly applies against a sovereign waives the immunity of that sovereign, even without a separate waiver provision. The Helms Burton Act's cause of action expressly applies against Cuban agencies and instrumentalities. Section 6082A1 CAPA confers a private right of action for any U.S. national whose property was confiscated by the Cuban government, running against any person that traffics in the confiscated property. And Section 6023 defines person to include any agency or instrumentality of a foreign state. This court's general sovereign immunity precedents, most recently Kurtz, hold that when Congress creates a cause of action and expressly applies it against government agencies or instrumentalities, Congress has abrogated sovereign immunity. Second, Congress does not ordinarily enact self-defeating statutes, see quarrels versus United States 587 US at six forty five, or authorize a suit against a sovereign with one hand only to bar it with the other. Third, the Helms Burton Act provides that suits under the Act fall within the general federal question jurisdiction of 28 USC, Section 1331, not under the FSIA's Section 1330. Title 22 USC, Section 6082C1 states that Title 28's provision applies to suits under the Act to the same extent as any other action brought under Section 1331 of Title 28. By making suits under the Helms Burton Act, subject to Section 1331 rather than Section 1330, Congress made clear that actions under the Act are not actions under the FSIA. Fourth, the Helms Burton Act grants the President plenary power to suspend suits under the Act based on current national security and foreign policy assessments, operating similarly to how foreign sovereign immunity operated before the 1976 enactment of the FSIA. Under both the Act and the pre-FSIA immunity regime, immunity decisions were the province of the executive branch. It is not plausible to conclude that Congress chose to reinstate the pre-FSIA immunity regime in the Helms Burton Act while simultaneously subjecting suits under the Act to the FSIA. The Cuban government defendants' counterarguments fail. The implied repeal canon does not apply because the Helms Burton Act contains many express indications that the Act is a standalone statutory exception to foreign sovereign immunity. And contrary to the Cuban government defendants' arguments, Congress does not need to use magic words to abrogate sovereign immunity. That's Kurtz. Congress must simply make a waiver clearly discernible from the sum total of its work, which the Helmsburton Act did through its many provisions, indicating that Cuban agencies and instrumentalities could and would be sued. That an earlier draft of the Helmsburton Act expressly waived sovereign immunity, while the final version did not, is simply another magic words requirement. The decision below is reversed and remanded. Justice Kavanaugh delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined. Justice Kagan filed a dissenting opinion, in which Justices Sotomayor and Jackson joined. Thanks for listening.