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Carnival Corporation Wins Reversal of First-of-Its-Kind Judgment Over Use of Havana Docks
- Client News
- October 22, 2024
Paul, Weiss won a significant appellate victory for Carnival Corporation when the Eleventh Circuit reversed a $440 million, first-of-its-kind judgment under the Helms-Burton Act for the allegedly improper use of docks in Havana that were seized by Fidel Castro’s government after the Cuban Revolution. The Helms-Burton Act concerns the U.S. embargo against Cuba.
Carnival and three other cruise lines sailed to Havana between 2016 and 2019 under licenses from the federal government and with the explicit encouragement of the president. Following a change in presidential administrations, private lawsuits became available for the first time in the history of the Helms-Burton Act, and in 2019, Havana Docks Corporation—a company that claims to have owned the Havana Cruise Terminal before the communist revolution in the 1950s—sued the cruise lines for the 2016-2019 cruises that docked there. In March 2022, the Southern District of Florida ruled at summary judgment that Havana Docks is a U.S. national under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and can therefore assert claims for trafficking, and that the cruise lines had engaged in trafficking by having their ships dock at the terminal.
On appeal, we argued that Havana Docks never held a right to conduct passenger operations at the terminal and that, even if it did at some point, its right to recover damages would have expired when its leasehold on the property ended in 2004; that Carnival’s use of the terminal was both incident and necessary to lawful travel; and that Havana Docks is not a U.S. national and therefore not a proper plaintiff, among other arguments.
The panel held that, while the district court was correct in its ruling that Havana Docks is a U.S. national under Helms-Burton, “Havana Docks’ limited property interest had expired, for purposes of Title III, at the time of the alleged trafficking by the cruise lines.” The court reversed and remanded the case for further proceedings.
The Paul, Weiss team was led by litigation partner Kannon Shanmugam.