Expedia Wins Another Helms-Burton Lawsuit Over Cuba

A Miami federal jury rejected a Title III Helms-Burton lawsuit from two Cuban-American families who claimed that Expedia profited from land expropriated shortly after the Cuban Revolution.

​Title III of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act allows U.S. claimants whose property was nationalized during the Cuban Revolution to sue companies for doing business on that property.

Suspended for two decades by both Republican and Democratic administrations, Trump's activation of Title III in 2019 dissuaded companies and investors from doing business in Cuba for fear of being sued in the U.S. 

​Read our article about the lobbying campaign that helped persuade Trump to activate the provision.

Jurors in the Expedia case found the claimants couldn't prove they owned the land upon which five hotels had been built. Maricela Mata, seeking $6 million, offered a 1928 business registry for a hotel she claims her grandfather owned in Cienfuegos. Ultimately, the jury was more convinced by Expedia's attorney, who dismissed the document as proof of who ran a company, not "who owned the dirt."

Mario Echevarria sought nearly $10 million, claiming he inherited a 12.5% stake in the island of Cayo Coco and that Expedia profited by booking rooms at resorts built there. But he couldn’t establish who in his family actually held the property claim.

This is Expedia’s second victory over a Cuba-related property claim in as many years. The company defeated a lawsuit seeking more than $1.7 billion in 2025 over hotel bookings on land formerly owned by the Sánchez Hill family. 

The claim was brought by Central Santa Lucía, a company created to hold the family’s property rights with the help of Miami attorney Nick Gutiérrez. 

Expedia accused Gutiérrez of creating and notarizing documents in 2000 that were backdated to March 7, 1996 — five days before the Helms-Burton cutoff for new claims. Jurors ultimately found that Central Santa Lucía failed to prove it acquired the claims before the cutoff.

Expedia’s most recent Title III battle comes months after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Helms-Burton claimants on two major legal questions. 

In May, the justices revived a lawsuit seeking nearly $440 million from four U.S. cruise operators for using docks in Havana after the Obama administration authorized travel to the island. The Court ruled that the companies could be held liable to the heirs of a Nazi-linked tycoon for using the physical docks even though the lease behind their claim would have expired in 2004.

A month later, the Court allowed Exxon Mobil to pursue more than $1 billion from Cuban state-owned companies, ruling that they are not protected by sovereign immunity. Foreign governments are typically shielded from lawsuits in U.S. courts unless a specific exception applies. But the justices ruled that Helms-Burton itself strips Cuban state entities of that immunity in Title III cases.

Both cases now return to lower courts: the cruise-line lawsuit to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals and ExxonMobil's case to the D.C. Circuit.