The Supreme Court agreed to hear a pair of cases that could ease the ability of U.S. companies to seek compensation for property confiscated by the Castro regime in Cuba

“This is the most important case involving U.S. foreign policy toward Cuba to reach this Court in the past sixty years,” one of the companies seeking compensation wrote in its Supreme Court petition.

the company that built and operated the piers at Havana’s port is seeking to reinstate a $440 million award it won against some of the world’s biggest cruise lines. Havana Docks Corporation, which built and possessed 99-year rights to operate the piers at the Port of Havana, is seeking compensation after the Castro regime took over the port upon assuming power.

The company is suing Carnival, MSC Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line and Royal Caribbean for disembarking nearly 1 million tourists on the docks between 2015 and 2019 and taking in hundreds of millions of dollars from those trips — paying Cuba but not Havana Docks.

The cases present distinct legal questions, but both concern the scope of the Helms-Burton Act, which Congress passed in 1996 to strengthen the U.S. embargo against Cuba. Its passage was spurred by the Cuban Air Force shooting down two unarmed civilian planes.

The law includes a provision enabling U.S. nationals to file lawsuits against anyone who “traffics” in property confiscated by the Cuban government after Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.

Exxon sued CIMEX and UnionCuba Petroleo, both Cuban state-owned enterprises, over the Castro regime’s confiscation of an oil refinery and more than 100 service stations owned by a subsidiary of Exxon, which was then known as Standard Oil. A U.S. commission later certified the company’s losses totaled roughly $71.6 million.

https://thehill.com/homenews/5536687-havana-docks-cruise-lawsuit