Last month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit held that a district court had subject-matter jurisdiction over the criminal prosecution of a bank that was majority-owned by the Turkish government notwithstanding the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).

In a complex ruling in United States v. Turkiye Halk Bankasi A.S., Circuit Judges Jose A. Cabranes, Amalya Lyle Kearse, and Joseph F. Blanco unanimously concluded that the FSIA’s enactment did not curtail the broad jurisdictional grant of 18 U.S.C. §3231, which confers district courts jurisdiction over “all offenses against the laws of the United States,” whether or not committed by foreign sovereigns. 2021 WL 4929002, at *5. In so holding, the Second Circuit followed precedent from the D.C. Circuit and departed from the principle, often repeated by a majority of the other Circuits, that the FSIA is the exclusive basis of subject-matter jurisdiction in actions against foreign states. Compare In re Grand Jury Subpoena, 912 F.3d 623, 628 (D.C. Cir. 2019), with Goar v. Compania Peruana de Vapores, 688 F.2d 417, 421 (5th Cir. 1982) (collecting cases for the majority view).

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