Halkbank v. United States

by Supreme Court of the United States

Note: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES

Syllabus

TURKIYE HALK BANKASI A. S., AKA HALKBANK v. UNITED STATES
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
No. 21–1450. Argued January 17, 2023—Decided April 19, 2023

The United States indicted Halkbank, a bank owned by the Republic of Turkey, for conspiring to evade U. S. economic sanctions against Iran. Halkbank moved to dismiss the indictment on the ground that as an instrumentality of a foreign state, Halkbank is immune from criminal prosecution under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976. The District Court denied the motion. The Second Circuit affirmed after first determining that the District Court had subject matter jurisdiction over Halkbank’s criminal prosecution under 18 U. S. C. §3231. The Second Circuit further held that even assuming the FSIA confers immunity in criminal proceedings, Halkbank’s charged conduct fell within the FSIA’s exception for commercial activities.

Held:

1. The District Court has jurisdiction under §3231 over this criminal prosecution of Halkbank. Section 3231 grants district courts original jurisdiction of “all offenses against the laws of the United States,” and Halkbank does not dispute that §3231’s text as written encompasses the charged offenses. Halkbank instead argues that because §3231 does not mention foreign states or their instrumentalities, §3231 implicitly excludes them. The Court declines to graft such an atextual limitation onto §3231’s broad jurisdictional grant. The scattered express references to foreign states and instrumentalities in unrelated U. S. Code provisions to which Halkbank points do not shrink the textual scope of §3231. And the Court’s precedents interpreting the Judiciary Act of 1789 do not support Halkbank, as the Court has not interpreted the jurisdictional provisions in the 1789 Act to contain an implicit exclusion for foreign state entities. Pp. 3–5.

2. The FSIA’s comprehensive scheme governing claims of immunity in civil actions against foreign states and their instrumentalities does not cover criminal cases. Pp. 5–14.

(a) The doctrine of foreign sovereign immunity originally developed in U. S. courts “as a matter of common law” rather than statute. Samantar v. Yousuf, 560 U. S. 305, 311. In 1976, Congress enacted the FSIA, which prescribed a “comprehensive set of legal standards governing claims of immunity in every civil action against a foreign state.” Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 488. The text of the FSIA indicates that the statute exclusively addresses civil suits. The first provision grants district courts original jurisdiction over “any nonjury civil action against a foreign state” as to “any claim for relief in personam with respect to which the foreign state is not entitled to immunity.” 28 U. S. C. §1330(a). The FSIA then sets forth a carefully calibrated set of procedures and remedies applicable exclusively in civil, not criminal, cases. Further, Congress described the FSIA as defining “the circumstances in which foreign states are immune from suit,” not from criminal investigation or prosecution. 90 Stat. 2891. In stark contrast, the FSIA is silent as to criminal matters, even though at the time of the FSIA’s enactment in 1976, the Executive Branch occasionally attempted to subject foreign-government-owned entities to federal criminal investigation. If Halkbank were correct, immunity from criminal prosecution undoubtedly would have surfaced somewhere in the Act’s text. Moreover, the FSIA’s location in the U. S. Code—Title 28, which mostly concerns civil procedure, rather than Title 18, which addresses crimes and criminal procedure—likewise reinforces the interpretation that the FSIA does not apply to criminal proceedings. Finally, this Court’s decision in Samantar, in which the Court analyzed the FSIA’s “text, purpose, and history” and determined that the FSIA’s “comprehensive solution” for suits against foreign states did not extend to suits against individual officials, 560 U. S., at 323, 325, similarly supports the conclusion here that the FSIA’s provisions do not extend to the discrete context of criminal proceedings. Pp. 5–9.

(b) In response to all the evidence of the FSIA’s exclusively civil scope, Halkbank claims immunity from criminal prosecution based on one sentence in the FSIA, which provides that a “foreign state shall be immune from the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States and of the States except as provided in sections 1605 to 1607 of this chapter.” 28 U. S. C. §1604. Section 1604, however, must be considered in context. Section 1604 works in tandem with §1330(a): Section 1330(a) spells out a universe of civil cases against foreign states over which district courts have jurisdiction, and §1604 then clarifies how principles of immunity operate within that limited civil universe. Halkbank’s interpretation of §1604 is also difficult to square with its view of the exceptions to immunity contained in §1605, which Halkbank insists apply exclusively in civil matters. Halkbank’s §1604 argument reduces to the implausible contention that Congress enacted a statute focused entirely on civil actions and then in one provision that does not mention criminal proceedings somehow stripped the Executive Branch of all power to bring domestic criminal prosecutions against instrumentalities of foreign states. Nothing in the FSIA supports that result. Pp. 10–12.

(c) Halkbank’s remaining arguments lack merit. While the Court did state in Argentine Republic v. Amerada Hess Shipping Corp. that the FSIA is the “sole basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign state in federal court,” 488 U. S. 428, 439, the Court made clear that the FSIA displaces general “grants of subject-matter jurisdiction in Title 28”—that is, in civil cases against foreign states, id., at 437. Halkbank also warns that if the Court concludes that the FSIA does not apply in the criminal context, courts and the Executive will lack “congressional guidance” as to procedure in criminal cases. But that concern carried no weight in Samantar, which likewise deemed the FSIA’s various procedures inapplicable to a specific category of cases—there, suits against foreign officials. And in any event, the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure would govern any federal criminal proceedings. Finally, Halkbank argues that U. S. criminal proceedings against instrumentalities of foreign states would negatively affect national security and foreign policy. But the Court must interpret the FSIA as written. And if existing principles do not suffice to protect national security and foreign policy interests, Congress and the President may always respond. Pp. 12–14.

3. The Second Circuit did not fully consider various common-law immunity arguments that the parties raise in this Court. The Court vacates the judgment and remands for the Second Circuit to consider those arguments. Pp. 14–16.

16 F. 4th 336, affirmed in part, vacated and remanded in part.

Kavanaugh, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Sotomayor, Kagan, Barrett, and Jackson, JJ., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, in which Alito, J., joined.

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