I’m going to start summarizing cases that are going to be appearing before the Court in near future. Hopefully this will help everyone stay one step ahead of the mainstream media’s reporting of these cases. You can access these briefs from the ‘Upcoming Events’ calender.

On April 16th, the Court will hear oral arguments in PowerEx Corp. v. Reliant Energy Services. A number of domestic energy companies including Reliant Energy brought suit against PowerEx, a Canadian company, for ‘unfair trade practices.’ PowerEx, an energy company owned entirely by the government of British Columbia, claimed immunity under the Foreign Soverign Immunities Act of 1976 which bars lawsuits from domestic entities brought against foreign states or their ‘organs.’

You can read the Petitioner’s brief here, the Respondents brief here, and the Petitioners reply here.

The Court’s official document cites the follwing as the main question:

Whether an entity that is wholly and beneficially owned by a foreign state’s instrumentality, and whose sole purpose is to perform international treaty and trade agreement obligations for the benefit of the foreign state’s citizens, may nonetheless be denied status as an “organ of a foreign state” under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (“FSIA”), 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b)(2), based on an analysis of sovereignty that ignores the circumstances surrounding the entity’s creation, conduct, and operations on behalf of its government.

The next case to be argued: Long Island Care at Home v. Coke on April 16, 2007

Related posts

• No related posts detected.