On June 5, 2025, in a unanimous decision authored by Justice Alito, the United States Supreme Court held that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA), 28 U.S.C. §§1330, 1602 et seq., does not require a plaintiff to prove a foreign state has made “minimum contacts” with the United States sufficient to satisfy the personal jurisdiction test set forth in International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 316 (1945). Applying a strict textualist approach, the Supreme Court ruled that personal jurisdiction over a foreign state-defendant exists whenever (1) an exception to foreign sovereign immunity applies and (2) the defendant has been properly served. CC/Devas (Mauritius) Limited, et. al., v. Antrix Corp. Ltd., et. al., No. 23-1201 , 605 U.S. __ (2025).[1]

Devas arose out of a commercial arbitration between two India-based companies, decided in India under Indian law. Antrix Corp. Ltd. (Antrix) is an Indian government-owned entity and is the commercial arm of Indian Space Research Organization. Antrix signed a satellite-leasing agreement with Devas Multimedia Private Ltd. (Devas), a privately owned Indian company organized to develop satellite-based telecommunications technology. Under the agreement, Antrix was to build and launch a new satellite network into geostationary orbit, and Devas was to use the leased satellite capacity to provide multimedia broadcasting services in India. The agreement contained an arbitration provision. After Antrix terminated the agreement with Devas, citing the contract’s force majeure clause, Devas commenced arbitration, and the panel ruled for Devas, awarding $562.5 million in damages and interest.

Three years later, after successfully confirming the award in the United Kingdom and France, Devas petitioned the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington to confirm the award. Devas relied on the arbitration exception to the FSIA. See 18 U.S.C. §1605(6) (providing, among other bases, an exception to foreign state’s immunity where an action is brought to confirm an award made pursuant to an agreement to arbitrate between the foreign state and a private party, and the award is governed by a treaty of the United States, calling for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards). The necessary treaty for the enforcement and recognition of the award, of course, is the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, to which the United States is a signatory.

Antrix opposed the confirmation proceeding on multiple grounds, but the District Court confirmed the award and entered a $1.29 billion judgment against Antrix. On appeal, a Ninth Circuit panel found that personal jurisdiction was lacking and therefore reversed the District Court’s order.[2] The Ninth Circuit panel did not question whether the FSIA’s statutory requirements for personal jurisdiction were satisfied but, bound by the Circuit precedent, the panel explained that FSIA also requires a traditional minimum contacts analysis.

The Supreme Court stated that the legal question being addressed is straightforward. The relevant statute, FSIA’s personal-jurisdiction provision, 28 U.S.C. §1330(b), provides:

(b) Personal jurisdiction over a foreign state shall exist as to every claim for relief over which the district courts have jurisdiction under subsection (a) where service has been made under section 1608 of this title.

The Supreme Court stated that since district courts have subject-matter jurisdiction under subsection (a) when any of the FSIA’s immunity exceptions applies, and service under Section 1608 is made when a plaintiff complies with the FSIA’s specialized service-of-process rules, Section 1330(b) makes personal jurisdiction automatic. Quoting a California district court’s decision from 2012, the Supreme Court said that “subject matter jurisdiction plus service of process equals personal jurisdiction” in the FSIA context. The Supreme Court observed that Section 1330(b) does not contain any references to “minimum contacts” and declined to add what Congress left out. The Supreme Court also went on to say that nothing in the 1982 Gonzalez Corp. decision, on which the Ninth Circuit relied, nor in the legislative history of the FSIA, supports an additional “minimum contacts” requirement for personal jurisdiction. Indeed, the relevant House Report states in relevant part that “[t]he immunity provisions … prescribe the necessary contacts which must exist before our courts can exercise personal jurisdiction.” Devas, at 12 (citing H.R. Rep. No. 94-1487, p. 13 (1976)).

The Supreme Court declined to address Antrix’s alternative arguments of why the Ninth Circuit’s decision reversing recognition of the award should be affirmed. Namely, Antrix argued that the minimum contacts analysis was required under the Due Process Clause, that the claims at issue do not fall within the FSIA’s arbitration exception, and that the suit should have been dismissed under forum non conveniens. The Supreme Court said the Ninth Circuit did not address these arguments and remanded the matter for Antrix to litigate these contentions in the Ninth Circuit.

Devas demonstrates the Supreme Court’s continued interest in issues of international arbitration and the Court’s lack of hesitancy in recognizing that enforcement of a foreign arbitral award in the U.S. against a foreign state would rarely satisfy the “minimum contacts” test from International Shoe, and that a reliance on the straightforward text of the statute to demonstrate existence of personal jurisdiction is sufficient. Other arguments raised by Antrix present interesting issues that may come back to the Supreme Court at some point in the future.

[1] This case was decided together with No. 24-17, Devas Multimedia Private Ltd. v. Antrix Corp. Ltd., et. al.

[2] This case presented a complicated dispute in that after Devas obtained the judgment in the District Court but before it could collect on any assets of India in the United States, an Indian corporate la-law tribunal found that Devas had procured the Devas-Antrix agreement by fraud and appointed an Indian Government official to seize control of Devas and wind down its affairs. Devas shareholders and an American subsidiary successfully intervened in the U.S. proceedings, obtained post-judgment discovery of Antrix’s assets in the U.S. and registered the judgment issued by the Western District of Washington in the Eastern District of Virginia, where Antrix held executable assets.