The Arduous Journey Of Collecting On A Judgment Against A Non-U.S. Sovereign

Estate of Michael Heiser v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 00-cv-2329 (D.D.C. Aug. 2011)(RCL), addresses claims arising from the 1996 bombing of the residential facility house U.S. Air Force personnel in Saudi Arabia, which, as the District Court chillingly reminds us, was at the time the largest non-nuclear explosion ever recorded on Earth. The international practice issue of note in the decision applies to far more cases than those involving international terrorism: the "often-frustrating and always-arduous path . . . [of] attempting to enforce FSIA judgments". In the case at hand, the plaintiff trid to prove that the Telecommunications Infrastructure Company of Iran (TIC) was an instrumentality of Iran, and the Court was being asked to direct Sprint Communications Co. to turn over funds it owes to TIC. Sprint defended by asserting that the plaintiff has not proven that TIC was a non-U.S. sovereign instrumentality.