Supreme Court Sides With Heirs of Nazi-Linked Tycoon
The U.S. Supreme Court dealt a setback Thursday to four major cruise companies, ruling 8–1 that they can be held liable under the 1996 Helms-Burton Act for using docks in the port of Havana nationalized after the Cuban Revolution. The ruling overturned an appellate court decision that had previously shielded the companies from up to $440 million in damages.
The lawsuit was brought by Havana Docks Corporation, which claims it is owed compensation by Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line and MSC Cruises. All four companies used the docks in Havana during the Obama administration’s opening with Cuba.
Havana Docks, which used to be run by Sosthenes Behn, a telecommunications tycoon who was the first “representative of American finance” to meet with Adolf Hitler and "helped build up the Nazi war machine," never owned the docks. Instead, the company owned a non-exclusive lease to operate a cargo business on the docks, which it was obligated to return to the Cuban government in 2004, more than a decade before the cruise ships began bringing U.S. visitors to Havana.
The majority opinion, delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, adopted a broad view of “trafficking," arguing that “property” can include an expired lease. The lone dissenter, Justice Elena Kagan, argued Congress did not intend for time-limited claims to be used to assert trafficking “to infinity and beyond.”
The Havana Docks case was made possible by Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows U.S. nationals to sue companies accused of “trafficking” in Cuban property that was nationalized after the Cuban revolution. Title III was suspended for 23 years by successive administrations to avoid legal conflicts with U.S. allies doing business in Cuba. In May 2019, Trump activated Title III for the first time since Helms-Burton was enacted, making it a central component of his administration's "maximum pressure" campaign against Cuba.
The activation of Title III was not a sudden policy shift but the culmination of a lobbying campaign funded by heirs of wealthy families who once owned property in pre-revolutionary Cuba.
Read our in-depth article about the Title III lobbying campaign that sought to crush foreign investment on the island.