Appeals Court Blocks Cuban Property Claims Against British Firms

A federal appeals court in Atlanta has narrowed the reach of one of the most closely watched legal tools available to Cuban American families seeking compensation for property seized after the 1959 revolution. On July 23, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a published decision in Rodriguez v. Imperial Brands PLC, affirming the dismissal of claims against two British corporations on jurisdictional grounds.

The plaintiffs, U.S. nationals whose family property in Cuba was confiscated by the Cuban government in 1961, sued multiple corporations under the Helms-Burton Act. They alleged that the defendants trafficked in confiscated property by marketing and publicizing Cuban tobacco products made at the seized factory, including through U.S.-based social media platforms.

A magistrate judge recommended dismissal for improper venue as to some defendants and for lack of personal jurisdiction as to others, specifically Imperial Brands and the advertising group WPP. The district court adopted that recommendation, finding the plaintiffs had failed to establish personal jurisdiction over the British corporations under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2). The Eleventh Circuit affirmed.

What Helms-Burton Title III allows

The Helms-Burton Act, formally the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, created a private right of action allowing U.S. nationals to sue anyone who traffics in property confiscated by the Cuban government.

The provision creating that right, Title III, was suspended by every president from Bill Clinton onward, in six-month increments, for more than two decades. Successive administrations suspended it to avoid conflict with allies whose companies do business in Cuba, particularly in Europe and Canada.

That changed in 2019, when the suspension was allowed to lapse and Title III lawsuits became available for the first time. Because the Southern District of Florida is where most claimants live and where many defendants have contacts, that court and the Eleventh Circuit above it became the primary venue for this litigation.

Trafficking is defined broadly in the statute, covering not just occupying or owning confiscated property but also profiting from it or participating in commercial activity involving it. That breadth is what allowed the Rodriguez plaintiffs to argue that marketing cigars produced at a seized factory constituted trafficking.

The jurisdictional obstacle

The Rodriguez decision did not rule on whether the defendants trafficked in confiscated property. It ruled that the courts could not reach two of them at all.

Personal jurisdiction is the constitutional requirement that a court have sufficient connection to a defendant to exercise authority over it. For foreign defendants with no presence in any single state, Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 4(k)(2) provides a mechanism to aggregate contacts with the United States as a whole rather than with one state.

The plaintiffs invoked that rule, arguing that the British corporations' U.S.-directed activities, including marketing on American social media platforms, established sufficient national contacts. The courts concluded those activities were insufficient.

The Eleventh Circuit's opinion grapples extensively with the Supreme Court's recent decision in Fuld, with the panel noting on its first page that it was doing its best to apply that precedent to a case it viewed as meaningfully different. Across 32 pages, the panel worked through how the Supreme Court's reasoning applies where a foreign defendant's connection to the United States runs primarily through digital marketing rather than physical presence.

That analysis is the decision's broader significance. Whether internet-based commercial activity directed at U.S. consumers creates jurisdiction over a foreign company is a question that reaches well beyond Cuba claims.

Why this matters in South Florida

Miami-Dade County is home to the largest Cuban American population in the United States, and property confiscation is not an abstract historical grievance there. It is family history, documented in deeds and titles that families carried out of Cuba and have kept for more than sixty years.

The Cuban Claims Program administered by the U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission certified thousands of claims for property confiscated after 1959, with a total certified value in the billions of dollars before interest. Those certified claims sit alongside a much larger universe of uncertified claims held by individuals who were not U.S. nationals at the time of confiscation but became citizens later, a group Helms-Burton Title III specifically enabled to sue.

When Title III became available in 2019, it represented the first practical mechanism many of these families had ever had. Cases were filed against cruise lines, hotel operators, financial institutions and consumer products companies.

The results have been mixed. The Supreme Court ruled against cruise lines in a prior confiscated property case involving Havana docks, and various suits have failed on jurisdictional, venue and standing grounds. Rodriguez adds to the body of law limiting how far the statute reaches against foreign defendants.

The practical effect on future claims

The decision does not close Title III. It shapes where and against whom claims can realistically be brought.

Defendants with substantial U.S. operations, physical presence, subsidiaries or extensive American business remain reachable. A company that does business in Florida directly is subject to Florida courts.

Foreign companies whose only U.S. connection runs through digital marketing and social media presence are, after Rodriguez, considerably harder to reach. That matters because many companies operating in Cuba are European, Canadian or Latin American, and Cuba's tourism and consumer goods sectors involve substantial foreign investment from countries whose companies avoid direct U.S. operations precisely to limit exposure.

The result is a jurisdictional asymmetry. The companies most deeply involved in Cuban commerce are frequently the ones least reachable by U.S. courts, while companies with U.S. operations tend to avoid Cuban business specifically to avoid liability.

Claimants may still pursue defendants with clearer domestic connections, and the underlying certified claims retain whatever value they might have in a future diplomatic settlement.

The policy backdrop

Cuba policy remains among the most politically salient issues in South Florida, and the Cuban American community's electoral influence has made it a consistent factor in Florida politics.

The current posture maintains Title III availability, which is what makes cases like Rodriguez possible. A future administration could suspend it again, which would halt new filings.

Congressional interest in Cuba policy runs strongly through Florida's delegation, and members from South Florida districts have consistently advocated for enforcement mechanisms that give claimants practical remedies.

The broader hemispheric context, including Venezuela, Nicaragua and Haiti, keeps Florida's diaspora communities engaged with U.S. foreign policy in ways that shape state and federal politics.

Why jurisdiction is the recurring obstacle

Personal jurisdiction has become the decisive issue in a substantial share of Helms-Burton litigation, which is a somewhat unexpected outcome given how the statute was designed.

Congress wrote Title III to create a broad substantive right, defining trafficking expansively to capture many forms of commercial benefit from confiscated property. What Congress could not do by statute is expand the constitutional limits on when a court may exercise authority over a defendant.

Those limits derive from the Due Process Clause and require that a defendant have sufficient minimum contacts with the forum such that being haled into court there does not offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice. That standard applies regardless of how strong the plaintiff's substantive claim may be.

The result is a mismatch. The statute reaches conduct occurring largely outside the United States by companies based outside the United States, while the Constitution requires a connection to the United States before a court can adjudicate it. Cases like Rodriguez sit precisely in that gap.

The certified claims and a future settlement

Running parallel to the litigation is a body of formally certified claims that could matter in any eventual diplomatic resolution.

The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, a federal body, adjudicated and certified claims by U.S. nationals for property confiscated by the Cuban government. Nearly 6,000 claims were certified with an aggregate principal value in the billions of dollars, and those claims accrue interest under the commission's framework.

Certified claims occupy a different legal position from Title III lawsuits. They are formal determinations by the United States government of the validity and value of specific claims, and historically such certified claims have been resolved through government-to-government settlement rather than private litigation.

Any future normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba would almost certainly require addressing them, since outstanding expropriation claims are a standard obstacle to normalized commercial relations.

For claimants, that creates two possible paths that operate on very different timelines. Litigation offers the possibility of a judgment now against a specific defendant. Diplomatic settlement offers the possibility of compensation someday under terms nobody can currently predict. Neither has yet delivered for most families holding claims.

What's next

The plaintiffs could seek rehearing before the Eleventh Circuit panel or en banc review by the full court, or petition the Supreme Court for review. Given that the opinion engages directly with a recent Supreme Court decision on jurisdictional questions, a certiorari petition arguing that the Eleventh Circuit misapplied that precedent is a plausible next step.

The Supreme Court takes a small fraction of the petitions it receives, and jurisdictional questions in Helms-Burton cases would need to present a broader conflict among circuits to attract review.

Meanwhile, other Title III litigation continues in the Southern District of Florida, and each decision refines the boundaries of what the statute can accomplish. The pattern emerging across these cases is that the substantive theory of trafficking is often less decisive than the threshold questions of who can sue, where, and over whom the court has authority.

For families in South Florida holding decades-old deeds, that is a frustrating answer. The Rodriguez decision does not say their property was not taken. It says two of the companies they sued cannot be brought into an American courtroom.