A Defining Supreme Court Term For Arbitration Enforcement And Helms-Burton Claims

First Tuesday Update is our monthly look at developments in commercial disputes, international arbitration, and judgment enforcement. This month, we look back at this year's Supreme Court term, which offered much needed clarity in several areas, which we have been closely following. The Court provided important clarity on the reach of the Federal Arbitration Act and the Helms-Burton Act, while also declining to intervene on two other important disputes involving the enforcement of arbitration awards. Taken together, the 2025-2026 Court Term favored an expansive approach to each statutory framework—favoring the interests of award-creditors and Helms-Burton Act claimholders.

The highlights:

• The Court held that a federal court that stays a case under FAA Section 3 retains jurisdiction to decide subsequent motions to confirm or vacate the resulting arbitral award. Jules v. Andre Balazs Props., 146 S. Ct. 1209 (2026).
• The Court held that Title III abrogates sovereign immunity for Cuban agencies and instrumentalities, allowing plaintiffs to pursue claims without first establishing a separate FSIA exception. Exxon Mobil v. Corporacion CIMEX (Cuba) et al., (2026). See our FTU on this here.
• The Court held that Title III may impose liability for commercially using confiscated Cuban property even where the claimant's original property interest has expired. Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd. (2026). Seeour FTU on this here.
• The Court denied certiorari, leaving in place a DC Circuit decision permitting enforcement of multiple international arbitral awards against Spain. Kingdom of Spain v. Blasket Renewable Invs., cert. denied (2026).
• The Court denied certiorari, leaving in place a DC Circuit decision rejecting Russia's sovereign-immunity defense to enforcement of two arbitral awards. Russian Fed'n v. Stabil LLC, cert. denied (2026).

The Court's decisions this term continue a trend of answering important unresolved questions related to arbitration enforcement while, for the first time, weighing in on the scope of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act.

We start our discussion with Jules, which fits naturally alongside its recent FAA decisions in Vaden, Badgerow, and Smith. Together, those cases define when federal courts may exercise jurisdiction over arbitration-related proceedings and confirm the continuing role courts play once litigation is stayed pending arbitration.

Jules resolves an important practical question left open by those decisions. The Court held that when a federal court, pursuant to recent Supreme Court precedent, stays claims under Section 3 of the FAA (when for example in granting a motion to compel arbitration), it retains jurisdiction to decide later motions to confirm or vacate the resulting award. The ruling preserves a court's supervisory role and avoids requiring parties to file a separate federal action after an arbitration concludes.

The practical implication is straightforward. Parties expecting to seek confirmation or vacatur in federal court may increasingly choose to initiate proceedings through FAA Sections 3 or 4 before an arbitration begins.

We next turn to Exxon and Havana Docks. These cases represented the first time in which the Court interpreted the Helms-Burton Act, which affords the rightful owners of property confiscated by the Cuban regime with a private right of action against any entity that "traffics" in that property. In Havana Docks, the Court made clear that the text of Helms-Burton imposes liability on a defendant for trafficking in confiscated property even if the plaintiff's interest in that property has long expired.¹ While in Exxon, the Court concluded that text of Helms-Burton was sufficiently clear to evidence Congress' intention that Cuban governmental agencies cannot invoke sovereign immunity in defense of a Helms-Burton claim.²
 

The decisions both provide important guidance to lower courts confronting a growing number of Helms-Burton cases and confirm that Title III should be interpreted broadly in light of Congress's remedial purpose. Steptoe has had the privilege of representing Exxon in connection with this claim.

Beyond the cases it chose to hear, the Court's cert denials are equally telling. By declining review in cases like Kingdom of Spain v. Blasket Renewable Invs., Russian Fed'n v. Stabil LLC, and Amaplat Mauritius v. Zimbabwe Mining Dep't, the Court has allowed DC Circuit rulings to stand—even where those rulings created a circuit split.³

The Court's denial of certiorari in Amaplat leaves unresolved an important split regarding enforcement of foreign judgments confirming international arbitral awards. The DC Circuit has taken a narrower view of the FSIA's implied waiver exception than the Second Circuit. In Seetransport Wiking Trader Schiffarhtsgesellschaft MBH & Co. v. Navimpex Centrala Navala, 989 F.2d 572 (2d Cir. 1993), the Second Circuit held that a sovereign impliedly waived its immunity when it signed the New York Convention and agreed to arbitrate a specific dispute subject to its terms, and that the implied waiver exception therefore applied when a claimant sought to enforce a foreign judgment recognizing an international arbitral award under the New York Convention. The DC Circuit disagreed. It reversed the District Court—departing from longstanding DC Circuit dicta following Seetransport—and held that the implied waiver exception applies to actions to confirm arbitral awards themselves, but not to actions seeking recognition of foreign judgments based on those awards. The result is a meaningful jurisdictional divide that may affect both enforcement strategy and the likelihood of recovery in cases involving sovereign debtors, particularly given the Federal Arbitration Act's three-year statute of limitations on actions in the United States to recognize an international arbitral award under the New York Convention.

While Amaplat concerns the scope of the implied waiver exception, Blasket and Stabil address a related question: whether a sovereign's consent to arbitrate must be resolved as a threshold jurisdictional issue. Although a denial of certiorari does not reflect agreement with the lower court's reasoning, the Court's refusal to review Stabil and Blasket leaves intact DC Circuit decisions that take a comparatively favorable view toward enforcing arbitral awards against sovereigns.

For example, the DC Circuit in Stabil relied on CC/Devas (Mauritius) Ltd. v. Antrix Corp. to "eliminate any lingering doubt that personal jurisdiction was lacking."⁴The result confirms that a sovereign's consent to arbitrate is a jurisdictional threshold matter, rather than an inquiry on the merits.⁵ And even though Devas left open an unresolved due process question in the FSIA context, the Court's denial of cert in Stabil allows that question to remain unanswered.⁶

Blasket frames the jurisdictional question slightly differently: whether a court can assert jurisdiction over a sovereign without first determining whether that sovereign validly consented to arbitrate.⁷ By denying cert, the Court again effectively endorsed the DC Circuit's approach. Whether these cert denials reflect judicial endorsement or are simply docket management decisions remains to be seen. Either way, the Court has permitted some gray areas to remain.

Taken together, this Term's decisions reflect a Court focused on preserving and enforcing existing statutory frameworks rather than reshaping them. Jules clarifies the federal courts' continuing role in arbitration proceedings once a case has been stayed. Exxon and Havana Docks reinforce the broad remedial scheme Congress created in the Helms-Burton Act. And by declining review in several sovereign-immunity cases, the Court has left in place a body of DC Circuit authority that remains influential in award-enforcement litigation.

For parties pursuing arbitral awards, enforcing judgments, or litigating Helms-Burton claims, the overall direction is clear: procedural pathways have become more defined, while several recent decisions have expanded opportunities for recovery.

Footnotes

1. 146 S. Ct. 1233, 1243 (2026).

2. 146 S.Ct. 1909, 1923 (2026) ("The ‘sum total' of the Helms-Burton Act's work clearly abrogates the foreign sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities and displaces the FSIA's default sovereign immunity regime.").

3. See Amaplat Mauritius Ltd. v. Zimbabwe Mining Dev. Corp., 143 F.4th 496, 501 (D.C. Cir. 2025), cert denied, No. 25-699 (reversing the District Court's ruling after emphasizing the "basic distinction between actions to confirm foreign arbitral awards and actions to domesticate foreign judicial judgments. The arbitration exception of the FSIA applies to the former, not the latter.").

4. 167 F.4th 506, 527 (D. C. Cir. 2026); see also CC/Devas (Mauritius) Limited v. Antrix Corp. Ltd., 605 U.S. 223, 232 (2025) (holding that "the text and structure of the FSIA demonstrate that Congress did not require ‘minimum contacts' over and above the contacts already required by the Act's enumerated exceptions to foreign sovereign immunity.").

5. Id.

6. Id.

7. Pet. For Writ of Certiorari, Kingdom of Spain v. Blasket Renewable Invs., LLC, No. 24-1130 (Sup. Ct. filed May 1, 2025).