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In May 2019, the Trump administration activated a provision in a 1996 law that every president before had quietly suspended. Within hours, cruise lines docked in Havana found themselves in legal crosshairs. Within weeks, they were being sued for hundreds of millions of dollars. Today, the Supreme Court is preparing to answer a question about how to interpret the word “trafficking”—and whether American companies operating in any country with a history of property seizures face legal liability.
A ruling in Havana Docks Corporation v. Royal Caribbean and a companion case involving Exxon could reshape how U.S. companies calculate risk when doing business globally, potentially opening the door to similar lawsuits over property confiscated in Venezuela, Nicaragua, Iran, and elsewhere.
The Cuban Revolution and Property Seizures
To understand why a Supreme Court case about modern cruise ships involves property that hasn’t been accessible to its original owners for 65 years, you have to start with Fidel Castro taking power on January 1, 1959.
Between 1959 and 1968, the revolutionary government of Cuba seized virtually all private property that wasn’t a personal home or small farm. The confiscations followed a pattern: properties of people connected to the previous regime first, then systematic seizures through industries—sugar, banking, utilities, manufacturing.
American companies were hit especially hard. Standard Oil (now ExxonMobil) lost an oil refinery, multiple terminals, and 117 service stations. The total: more than $71 million at the time, which translates to roughly $600 million in today’s dollars.
Most claimants were never compensated.
The Helms-Burton Act of 1996
Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act in 1996 to provide American victims of Castro’s confiscations with a legal remedy. The law created a private right of action that let ordinary Americans and American companies sue, in U.S. courts, anyone “trafficking in property” that had been confiscated.
The statute included a provision: the president could suspend the entire private right of action for periods of six months if he determined that suspension served the national interest and might help democratize Cuba. Clinton, George W. Bush, and Obama all used this authority repeatedly, issuing suspensions every six months.
In May 2019, President Trump let the six-month suspension expire without renewing it.
Within hours, people started filing lawsuits. Havana Docks Corporation, which claimed to have owned the cruise terminal before 1959, calculated that the four major cruise lines—Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and MSC—had brought nearly one million passengers through its former facility between 2016 and 2019.
A jury in Florida agreed. In March 2022, a federal judge ordered the cruise lines to pay $440 million in damages, including treble damages for the companies’ failure to stop operations after being notified to do so.
The cruise lines appealed, and the Eleventh Circuit reversed the judgment entirely. The reason: Havana Docks’ concession agreement for the docks had expired in 2004. After 2004, the company had no legal interest in the property, so the cruise lines couldn’t have been “trafficking in” something that Havana Docks no longer owned.
Now the Supreme Court will decide whether that reading is correct.
The Broader Implications
The case touches three fundamental questions: First, how long do property rights last after expropriation? Second, who counts as a defendant in these cases—only the company directly operating the property, or also companies that facilitate that operation? Third, should Congress’s broad remedial intent override technical property law arguments?
The answers matter because confiscation patterns in Cuba have echoes elsewhere. Venezuela seized American oil interests. Nicaragua has seized American property. Iran confiscated assets decades ago. If the Supreme Court rules narrowly—if it says confiscations are ancient history after enough time passes—it narrows the window for enforcement. If it rules broadly, it opens that window wide.
Who Has a Claim
Descendants of people who lost property can file claims if they were U.S. citizens at the time of confiscation or have since become naturalized Americans.
The problem is proving it. If your grandmother lost a house in Havana in 1961 but the original deed is in Cuba and your family never filed with the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, you have to reconstruct ownership in court. You need documents, testimony, and proof that the confiscation happened to your family. For properties lost 65 years ago, those documents might not exist outside of Cuban government archives.
Exxon, which has the advantage of corporate records spanning generations, took decades to compile documentation of its Havana refinery, service stations, and related equipment. For individual claimants, the burden can be insurmountable.
Lawsuits Already Being Filed
While the Supreme Court considers abstract questions about property rights and confiscation law, real lawsuits are already being filed and decided. Some have been dismissed, some have settled, and a few have gone to trial.
Liability extends beyond companies operating directly on confiscated land. Travel agents, online booking services, insurance companies providing coverage for businesses on confiscated property, shipping companies transporting goods to or from confiscated facilities—all are potentially liable.
The Exxon case involves a different issue. Exxon is suing Cuban state-owned companies that now operate the refinery and service stations that were confiscated from Standard Oil. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Exxon first has to prove its claims fall within specific exceptions to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act—a 1970s law that generally shields foreign governments from lawsuits in American courts. The Trump administration argues that Congress, by enacting Title III, explicitly intended to override those immunities for Cuban entities. If Exxon wins, it could dramatically expand the categories of defendants vulnerable to Title III suits.
International Response
The international community is preparing its response. This creates a practical problem for companies. Say a cruise line loses a Title III case in Florida and owes $100 million. The company has operations in Europe. It can’t enforce the judgment there because the EU blocking statute forbids it. The company could try to seize assets in the U.S., but if the cruise line’s operating subsidiary is European, the U.S. might not have enough attachable assets to satisfy the judgment.
Some cruise lines pulled out of Cuba entirely after the Trump administration reimposed travel restrictions in June 2019. Insurance companies are grappling with whether they can underwrite operations in Cuba or other countries with similar expropriation risks, knowing they might face Title III liability if they do.
For businesses considering operations in any country that’s experienced expropriation—which includes most developing nations that have gone through political upheaval—the Title III precedent now looms as a hidden cost of doing business.
What the Supreme Court Is Deciding
The Supreme Court’s question in Havana Docks v. Royal Caribbean is specific: Did the cruise lines “traffic in” property that was confiscated from Havana Docks, or did they traffic in something else because the company’s concession had already expired?
The cruise lines argue the facts are straightforward. Havana Docks Corporation received a 99-year concession from the Cuban government in 1905, renewed to run until 2004. When the Cuban government confiscated property in 1960, it confiscated that concession right. By 2004, Havana Docks’ right was gone—consumed by time, not confiscation. The cruise lines never trafficked in property that Havana Docks could claim as confiscated in 2016.
Havana Docks argues the law doesn’t work that way. Title III says it protects claimants’ rights to property “confiscated” by the Cuban government. Once property is confiscated, it remains confiscated. The cruise lines were using the physical docks—the piers, the facilities—that were constructed using Havana Docks’ concession and its investment. The fact that the original concession had expired doesn’t erase the company’s claim to the property itself and the value its investment created.
The U.S. government argued that property rights under Title III should be interpreted in the way most protective of claimants, not in the way most protective of corporate defendants trying to evade liability. Congress wanted to compensate people whose property was stolen. Technical property law shouldn’t be weaponized to defeat that intent.
The Eleventh Circuit disagreed. A limited concession creates a limited right. When that right expires, there’s nothing left to confiscate.
How This Affects You
If the Court rules for property owners, expect cruise tickets to Cuba to become far more expensive—if they exist at all. Companies will face significantly higher legal risk and insurance costs. Some might exit the market entirely. That narrows consumer choice and potentially drives up prices for the remaining options.
If you’re Cuban-American and your family lost property, the ruling determines whether pursuing a claim is realistic. With hundreds of thousands of potential claimants and the statute of limitations running, the clock is ticking. If you think your family might have a claim, the time to investigate is now.
If you work in international business—tourism, shipping, agriculture, energy, hospitality—the ruling affects how you assess risk in countries with histories of expropriation or political instability. Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other nations that have seized foreign assets suddenly become riskier propositions. Insurance costs rise. Due diligence requirements expand. Some deals that would have been signed get shelved.
If you’re a consumer, broader effects will take years to materialize. Higher corporate liability exposure gets reflected in prices and reduced availability of services in certain markets. Some companies withdraw from emerging markets they would otherwise enter. That reduces competition and innovation in developing countries that could benefit from it.
The case reveals something about American law: when a property regime ends, there’s often no clean resolution. For 60 years, people who lost property in Cuba had the option but not the ability to recover anything. Now they have the ability but face hostile international opposition, high legal costs, and technical barriers.
What Happens Next
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on February 23, 2026, and is expected to rule by June 2026.
Watch for how the Court frames “confiscated property.” Does it mean the original property interest (the concession), or does it mean the physical property that was built using that interest? The answer determines whether dozens of pending lawsuits proceed or die.
Also watch for whether the Court addresses standing: whether people suing today have the same rights as people who could have sued decades ago. A two-year statute of limitations applies to anyone who stops “trafficking” in property. But when did the cruise lines stop trafficking? When they abandoned Havana in June 2019 under pressure? Or earlier, when they first started using the docks in 2016? The answer determines which cases are still timely and which are barred.
The Exxon case, which the Supreme Court is also reviewing, operates on a different legal track but could be decided around the same time. If the Court rules that Title III independently overrides sovereign immunity, Exxon likely wins and the precedent opens a vast category of defendants to liability. If it rules that claimants must navigate the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act’s exceptions, Exxon faces a much harder road.
Between the two cases, the Court is being asked to resolve whether Congress’s 1996 solution to a 1959 conflict works as written, or whether it was always supposed to be suspended indefinitely, kept on the books but never used.
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