Supreme Court rules cruise lines liable for Cuba's confiscated docks

In 1928, Havana Docks Corporation obtained a 99-year concession from Cuba to develop and operate docks at the Port of Havana, with the agreement set to run until 2004. Cuba's revolutionary government confiscated those docks without compensation in 1960, with on the contract. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission later certified Havana Docks' loss at approximately $9.1 million — worth nearly $100 million in 2026 dollars — but Cuba never paid a cent.

From 2016 to 2019, President Obama's diplomatic opening allowed cruise ships to resume stops in Havana for the first time in decades. Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, and MSC Cruises each operated voyages to Cuba, for access to those same confiscated docks. The four lines earned at least $1.1 billion in revenue and paid $138 million to Cuban-controlled entities during those three years.

Congress passed the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act in 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act, in part as a direct response to Cuba's February 1996 shootdown of two civilian aircraft operated by Brothers to the Rescue, a Miami exile group. Title III of the law created allowing U.S. nationals with claims to confiscated property to sue anyone who commercially traffics in that property.

Every president from Clinton through Obama suspended Title III's operation every six months for 23 consecutive years, citing diplomatic concerns and objections from U.S. allies. The first Trump administration broke that streak in May 2019, for the first time since the law's passage. Havana Docks filed suit against each cruise line within weeks.

A federal district court in Miami awarded Havana Docks approximately $110 million against each of the four cruise lines, totaling around $440 million. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals reversed those judgments in a 2-1 decision in October 2024, concluding that because Havana Docks' concession expired in 2004, the cruise lines couldn't have been trafficking in Havana Docks' property interest when they used the docks in 2016-2019.

Havana Docks petitioned the Supreme Court. The question became whether 'confiscated property' under the Helms-Burton Act refers only to the specific ownership interest held at the moment of confiscation, or whether it reaches the underlying physical property itself. The answer determines whether a claimant whose interest has expired can still bring a trafficking suit against later users of the same physical asset.

Justice Clarence Thomas — appointed by President George H.W. Bush and confirmed 52-48 in 1991 — wrote the majority opinion for eight justices. Thomas held that 'confiscated property' carries a dual meaning: it refers both to the plaintiff's original interest in the property and, more broadly, to the physical property itself. Once Cuba confiscated the docks, Thomas wrote, those docks became permanently under the statute — off limits such that anyone who uses the property can be liable to those who had an interest in the tainted property.

The majority's textualist reading treats the physical docks as frozen in their confiscated status indefinitely. That approach means Havana Docks can pursue damages even though its specific ownership interest would have run out in 2004. The ruling vacated the Eleventh Circuit's decision and remanded the case for further proceedings, leaving open whether the cruise lines might still prevail on other grounds.

Justice Elena Kagan — appointed by President Obama and confirmed 63-37 in 2010 — was the sole dissenter. Kagan wrote that the majority had misconstrued the statute's plain text: what Havana Docks owned was only a property interest allowing it to use those docks for a specified time, and that time-limited interest expired in 2004. In Kagan's reading, the cruise lines couldn't have because by 2016 Havana Docks had no remaining property interest in the docks to traffic in.

Kagan argued the majority's approach would allow plaintiffs to recover for trafficking in property that was not theirs — enabling suits by anyone who ever held any interest in confiscated property, no matter how long ago that interest lapsed. The dissent framed the majority's reading as a departure from what Congress actually wrote, rather than a faithful application of the statute's text.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, filed a concurring opinion agreeing with the majority's resolution of the narrow question but flagging two concerns for remand. First, Sotomayor questioned whether the cruise lines might be protected by an exception in the Helms-Burton Act for transactions and uses of property related to lawful travel to Cuba — the Obama-era trips were authorized under U.S. Treasury licenses. Second, she warned against reading the majority opinion to authorize an unlimited recovery from anyone who ever touches confiscated property, noting that such an interpretation could to billion-dollar liability.

The Sotomayor-Kavanaugh concurrence shapes what the cruise lines can argue on remand. The Supreme Court's ruling doesn't guarantee the cruise lines ultimately pay; it confirms the suit can proceed.

The ruling lands at a moment when the Trump administration is ratcheting up broader pressure on Cuba, having blocked Venezuelan and Mexican oil shipments to the island and unsealing a criminal indictment against Raul Castro in May 2026. Congress enacted Helms-Burton with explicit foreign policy goals: to deny revenue to the Cuban government, deter foreign investment in confiscated assets, and create financial pressure for regime change. By reviving the cruise line suits, reinforces Helms-Burton as a live enforcement mechanism rather than a dormant historical artifact.

The Exxon Mobil case — involving the company's claims over oil and gas assets confiscated by Cuba in 1960 — remains pending before the Supreme Court. If the Court applies the Havana Docks tainted-property framework broadly in Exxon, it could open billion-dollar exposure for a far wider range of companies that have ever operated in or with Cuba.

The total value of U.S.-certified claims against Cuba for properties expropriated between 1959 and 1960 is estimated at between $9 billion and $10 billion in . Cuba seized an estimated $1.8 billion in privately held American property at the time — including telephone, electric, and oil industries, and all U.S.-owned sugar mills. The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission certified 5,913 claims by U.S. nationals, none of which Cuba has ever compensated.

The Havana Docks ruling raises the question of how broadly the tainted-property doctrine extends. Infrastructure users, hotel operators, logistics companies, and joint-venture partners that have commercially engaged with any of those confiscated assets since Title III took effect in 2019 may face exposure. Legal scholars note the ruling converts Title III from a narrow historical remedy into a for any multinational with Cuba operations.

The Helms-Burton Act carries a treble-damages provision under 22 U.S.C. § 6082(a)(3): defendants who receive 30 days' notice that they are trafficking in confiscated property but continue doing so can face three times the actual damages. Havana Docks gave the cruise lines notice before suing. At the $110 million base judgment per line, treble damages would reach $330 million per company — though courts have discretion in applying the multiplier, and the remand leaves room for the cruise lines to contest both liability and the damage calculation.

Congress built the treble-damages mechanism into Helms-Burton to maximize deterrence against commercial engagement with confiscated Cuban assets. In practice, it creates a situation where companies that chose to operate in Cuba during the Obama-era policy window now face liability calibrated not to their actual financial gain but to a punitive multiple of it, payable to a private U.S. corporation that hasn't held any operational interest in those docks for more than two decades.