Sucesores de Don Carlos Nunez y Dona Pura Galvez Inc. v. Societe Generale S.A.

OPINION & ORDER Plaintiffs, a corporation created to assert claims to the confiscated assets and banking infrastructure of former Cuban bank Banco Nuñez and twelve heirs or descendants of the founders of the bank, bring this suit against Defendants Société Générale, S.A. (“SocGen”) and BNP Paribas, S.A. (“Paribas”). They allege that by extending credit facilities to the Cuban bank that now holds the assets expropriated from the Banco Nuñez founders, Defendants trafficked in that confiscated property within the meaning of the Helms-Burton Act. Under the civil remedy provision of that Act, Plaintiffs assert a claim against Defendants for money damages of three times the value of Banco Nuñez at the time it was seized, plus interest for the ensuing sixty-one years. Defendants move jointly to dismiss Plaintiffs’ claims under Rules 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Defendants raise a range of arguments in support of their motion, including contentions that Plaintiffs fail to allege continued ownership of claims to confiscated property that are not time-barred, that international law forecloses Plaintiffs’ claims, that the alleged injury in this case cannot support Article III standing, and that Plaintiffs have not adequately alleged that Defendants acted knowingly and intentionally.¹ For the reasons set forth below, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is GRANTED. BACKGROUND² Plaintiff Sucesores de Don Carlos Nuñez y Doña Pura Galvez, Inc. (“Sucesores”) is a Florida corporation formed by heirs of the founders of Banco Nuñez, Carlos and Pura Nuñez, “[f]or the sole purpose of consolidating and asserting interests in Banco Nuñez.” (Second Am. Compl. (“SAC”) 3, ECF No. 82.) The twelve individual plaintiffs include ten children and grandchildren of Carlos and Pura Nuñez, Carlos’s second wife, and his son from that second marriage, all of whom inherited interests in Banco Nuñez. (Id.

7-18.) Defendants are two large French financial institutions, SocGen and Paribas, that have extended credit facilities to numerous Cuban enterprises. (Id.