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R a b i n o w i t z,  B o u d i n,  S t a n d a r d,  K r i n s k y  &  L i e b e r m a n,  P . C. 
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FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS, THEIR AGENCIES and ENTERPRISES
INTERNATIONAL LAW

       The Firm has long been known for its distinctive practice representing foreign governments, and their agencies and enterprises, as well as for its practice in international and foreign relations law generally.  It provides legal advice and consultation, assistance in transactional matters, and representation in frequently precedent-setting litigation.

       The Firm represents the Republic of Cuba, and its agencies and enterprises, in all matters pertaining to the United States.  The Firm has been Cuba's only counsel in the United States since June 1960.

The Firm has also represented: 









       Much of the Firm's work has concerned sensitive and highly contentious issues, such as United States economic sanctions; State-to-State disputes; the nationalization of U.S.-owned, and domestically-owned, businesses; sovereign immunity; "Head of State" immunity; the act of state doctrine; the attachment of assets in litigation; U.S. government programs freezing the assets of sanctioned countries; and the protection of state enterprises.

       The Firm has litigated many of the leading foreign policy and international law cases to come before United States courts over the last four decades.

       These have included Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino (establishing the modern "act of state" doctrine); First National City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba (establishing the "separate entity" principle for state enterprises); Dames & Moore v. Regan (upholding Presidential authority to waive and settle the claims of U.S. nationals against foreign governments for nationalizations and defaults, even over the U.S. claimants' objections, in order to resolve international disputes); and Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Chase Manhattan Bank (standard for compensation of nationalized property under international law).

Republic of Cuba 

       Since 1960, the Firm has represented the Republic of Cuba, and its agencies and enterprises, in all their legal matters pertaining to the United States.  The Firm has been Cuba's only counsel in the United States for close to 50 years.

       The Firm has assisted Cuba in addressing many of the most difficult issues in Cuba-U.S. relations, including the U.S.'s economic sanctions against Cuba; the extraterritorial application of U.S. embargo laws; and Cuba's nationalization of U.S.-owned, and Cuban-owned, property.  The Firm advises the Cuban government on the implications of United States law, and legislative and regulatory developments, for Cuba-U.S. relations.

       The Firm has advised the Cuban government on international law issues relevant to United Nations proceedings, including the General Assembly resolutions condemning United States economic sanctions against Cuba.  Michael Krinsky, one of the Firm's principals, authored, with another of the Firm's lawyers, UNITED STATES ECONOMIC SANCTIONS AGAINST CUBA:  PROCEEDINGS IN THE UNITED NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW ISSUES (Michael Krinsky & David Golove eds., Alethia Press 1993), based in part on the Firm's work for Cuba on the first General Assembly resolution condemning the U.S. embargo.  Supported by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the book was praised by both the American Journal of International Law  and Foreign Affairs .

       The Firm has represented the Cuban government, its central bank, and its enterprises in landmark litigation.  Please see below for details.

       It has assisted Cuban enterprises with transactional matters in all the permissible areas of travel and commerce with the United States.  These include:







       The Firm represents the Cuban cigar companies, Cubatabaco and Habanos, S.A., as well as numerous other Cuban enterprises, in the protection of their trademarks in the United States.  The Firm's work ranges from litigation, such as the current court fight over the world-famous COHIBA trademark, to the registration of trademarks in the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Please see Intellectual Property for more details on the Firm's practice in this area.

Landmark Litigation on behalf of Cuba, Its Agencies and Enterprises

       On behalf of its Cuban clients, the Firm has litigated numerous landmark cases in international and foreign relations law.  These court decisions, many rendered by the United States Supreme Court, establish legal principles that are of great importance to foreign sovereigns generally, not just Cuba.  These decisions include:  

The Separate Entity Doctrine for State Enterprise

       The Supreme Court's decision in First National City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba (the Bancec case), litigated by the Firm, established the principle that foreign state enterprises may not, with narrow exceptions, be held responsible for the debts and obligations of the foreign state.  Appellate and trial courts have applied Bancec  in scores of cases involving many different countries.  Bancec  is essential for state-owned enterprises to maintain trade and financial relations with the United States.  Without its protection, they would be subject to potentially crippling attachments and legal judgments based on the unrelated acts of the foreign state. 

       In Alejandre v. Republic of Cuba, the Firm successfully relied on the "separate entity" principle it had established in the Supreme Court to protect telecommunication payments owed by AT&T, MCI and others to the Cuban telephone company.  The plaintiffs sought to seize the payments to satisfy a substantial default judgment against the Republic of Cuba.

Act of State Doctrine

       In Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, the Firm won the celebrated U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the courts of the United States will not, with limited exceptions, question the legality of the acts of a foreign sovereign done within its own territory, even if those acts are allegedly in violation of international law. 

       The Sabbatino decision is the foundation of the modern "act of state" doctrine, which insulates sovereign acts from attack in the courts of the United States in most circumstances.  The Supreme Court refined the "act of state doctrine" in two subsequent cases litigated by the Firm (First National City Bank v. Banco Nacional de Cuba ; Alfred Dunhill of London, Inc. v. Republic of Cuba).

Nationalizations

       The Firm has litigated the leading U.S. cases on the subject of nationalizations.  In Sabbatino, the Supreme Court ruled that the "act of state" doctrine applies to bar U.S. courts from entertaining challenges to the nationalization of U.S.-owned property situated in the foreign country at the time of the nationalization.  In Sabbatino, the Supreme Court also recognized that there was no clear consensus on whether customary international law requires compensation.

       In Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Chase Manhattan Bank, the Firm convinced the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit that international law does not support the traditional "Hull Doctrine" of full and immediate compensation espoused by the U.S. State Department.  Chase  is the leading U.S. judicial decision on the question of compensation under international law. 

       In a series of cases, such as Mendendez v. Faber Coe & Gregg, the Firm won judicial acceptance of the principle that international law does not restrict a sovereign's authority to expropriate the property of its own nationals.  In cases such as Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Chemical Bank, the Firm established exceptions to the general rule that foreign states cannot recover the property of nationalized domestic enterprises situated within the United States at the time of the nationalizations.  

Cuban Law

       Debra Evenson, counsel to the Firm, is generally considered one of the leading U.S. experts on Cuban law.  The most recent of her numerous published works on Cuban law is LAW AND SOCIETY IN CONTEMPORARY CUBA  (Kluwer Law International, 2003).

Republic of South Africa

       The Firm is currently defending the Republic of South Africa in litigation that seeks to hold it liable for claims against South African citizens based on allegations that these individuals acted as sanctions-busting agents of the former apartheid regime. 

       The Firm is also currently presenting South Africa's objections to United States courts' entertaining private claims against U.S. banks and corporations for doing business in apartheid-era South Africa.  The Republic of South Africa maintains that, whether or not to hold U.S. companies responsible is a sovereign decision for South Africa alone to make, not a matter for the United States courts. 

       The Firm prevailed in sovereign immunity litigation on behalf of the Republic of South Africa arising from its effort to prevent unauthorized use of Internet domain names bearing the "South Africa" name. 

       The Firm advised the Government and assisted in preparing presentations to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). 

Central Bank of Iran (Bank Markazi Iran)

       During the Iran-U.S. confrontation of 1979-81, the Firm successfully represented the Central Bank of Iran (Bank Markazi Iran) in litigation to protect billions of dollars of Central Bank assets from seizure by United States banks alleging default by Iranian commercial entities on bank loans.  The Firm obtained a U.S. judicial decision recognizing the Central Bank's right to proceed with litigation in London to determine the validity of the U.S. banks' claims, rather than be forced to resolve the banks' claims in U.S. courts.  In other litigation involving over 100 cases in the United States courts, the Firm obtained orders vacating judicial attachments of Central Bank accounts by United States companies asserting commercial claims against Iranian commercial state enterprises.

       The Firm drafted the protocol that became the basis for the Algerian Declarations, the Iran-U.S. accord that provided for release of U.S. Embassy personnel held in Tehran, transfer of Iran's blocked assets in the United States to Iran, suspension of all private lawsuits against Iran and Iranian entities in U.S. courts, and establishment of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in The Hague for resolution of all claims by U.S. nationals against Iran and its enterprises.  In this and other respects, the Firm provided legal advice to Iran on the crisis in Iran-U.S. relations.

       The United States corporations with claims against Iran challenged the Algerian Declarations in the U.S. courts, asserting that the U.S. President had exceeded his constitutional authority in agreeing, without their consent, to dismissal of their lawsuits and nullification of their attachments of Iranian property.  The Firm represented the Central Bank of Iran before the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Dames & Moore v. Regan, which upheld the Algerian Declarations against the U.S. corporations' attack. 

       Following the Supreme Court decision, the Firm represented the Central Bank and other Iranian government entities in proceedings before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal in disputes with the United States government itself.  These included the unblocking of Iranian assets in the United States and Iranian claims to undelivered military equipment. 

Prime Minister Papandreou and the Hellenic Republic (Greece)

       The Firm represented Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou in his politically charged lawsuit for defamation against TIME magazine.  The Firm also represented the government of Greece in its attempt to extradite a former high Greek official accused of corruption, as well as in a variety of other matters.  

President Aristide and the Republic of Haiti

       The Firm successfully represented President Aristide, then in exile in the United States, in asserting "Head of State" immunity to defeat a lawsuit for the alleged assassination of a coup leader.  The case remains the leading U.S. precedent on "Head of State" immunity. 

       The Firm successfully brought litigation to recover Haiti state assets looted by the Duvalier family that had been secreted in New York.  It assisted the Center for Constitutional Rights in similar efforts on behalf of the government of the Philippines to recover state assets looted by Marcos.

Republic of Chile

       During the presidency of Salvador Allende, the Firm represented the Republic of Chile, Chile's state-owned copper company (CODELCO) and Chile's development corporation (CORFO).  The Firm resigned when the Allende government was overthrown in the September 11, 1973 coup.  

       The Firm advised the Allende government on the nationalization of U.S.-owned copper mines, and defended Chile, CORFO and CODELCO in subsequent litigation brought by the U.S. copper companies.  While litigation over the court-ordered attachment of Chilean property proceeded, the Firm advised Chile and its enterprises on how best to restructure commercial transactions with the U.S.  Even though not imposed by the U.S. government as a formal embargo, judicial attachments obtained by the U.S. copper companies posed such a serious threat that the Allende government condemned them as a U.S.-government inspired "invisible blockade."

Nicaragua

       During the Sandanista period, the Firm represented Nicaraguan state enterprises in nationalization litigation.  It also represented Nicaragua's Mission to the United Nations. 

Angola

       The Firm represented the Angolan state airline, TAAG, in commercial litigation.  It represented Angolan's Mission to the United Nations.

PLO's Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations

       The Firm represented officials of the PLO's Permanent Observer Mission to the United Nations in obtaining a judicial order that prohibited the U.S. government from closing the Mission pursuant to the U.S.'s Anti-Terrorism Act of 1987. 

United States Economic Sanctions Programs

       The Firm assists numerous U.S. and third-country clients - corporations, foundations, universities, associations and individuals - in coping with U.S. restrictions on transactions with targeted countries.  Please see United States Economic Sanctions Programs.

Constitutional Litigation

       Much of the Firm's work in the field of constitutional litigation has focused on U.S. government efforts to interfere with international contacts, and punish perceived support of foreign political movements.  The Firm's constitutional litigation has frequently concerned the allocation of foreign affairs authority among the three branches of government.  Please see Constitutional Litigation.

International Intellectual Property

       The Firm has an active practice in trademarks, copyrights and other intellectual property, with a particular emphasis on the protection of foreign trademarks in the United States.  Please see Intellectual Property.
111 Broadway, Suite 1102, New York, New York 10006  Tel: (212) 254-1111   Fax: (212) 674-4614    Email: rbskl@rbskl.com
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