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Legal News:
US Supreme Court Denies Sovereign Immunity
Defence to Israeli Company
On April 22, 2003 the United States Supreme Court handed down its
decision in Dole Food Co. v. Patrickson and Dead Sea Bromine
Co., Ltd. v. Patrickson, 2003 U.S. LEXIS 3242 (Nos. 01-593 and 01-594,
Apr. 22, 2003) in which the U.S. high court ruled that Dead Sea Bromine
Co. was not entitled to assert the defence of
sovereign immunity in a mass tort litigation against international bromine
producers whose products allegedly resulted in the sterilization of
thousands of banana plantation workers around the world.
Zell, Goldberg attorneys had assisted plaintiffs' Texas counsel in their
attempt to persuade the Government of Israel to intervene with the former
government company's management, to refrain from
invoking Israel's sovereign immunity in collaboration with the defendant
bromine producers, in order to cause the
plaintiffs' suits to be removed to US federal court where they would be
subject to dismissal on the grounds of forum non conveniens.
The decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the Dole Foods and Dead Sea
Bromine cases confirmed the position taken by ZGC
attorneys in their discussions with Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
namely that Dead Sea Bromine as a second-tier subsidiary was not cloaked
with sovereign immunity under international and US law,
and that in any case the company had been privatized at the time the US
lawsuits were filed and therefore was not a government instrumentality for
purposes of the US Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act.
For further details of these cases, contact us at
info@fandz.com.
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