Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd

In 1928, a U.S. company called Havana Docks Corporation acquired a right from the Cuban government to develop and operate docks at the Port of Havana, a right set to expire in 2004. In 1960, Cuba's revolutionary government seized the docks without compensation. Decades later, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act, letting U.S. nationals with claims to property confiscated by Cuba sue anyone who later "traffics in" that property. 

Between 2016 and 2019, four major cruise lines, including Royal Caribbean, Carnival, Norwegian, and MSC, carried nearly a million passengers to Havana using those same docks, and Havana Docks sued them for trafficking in its confiscated property interest.

The district court granted summary judgment for the cruise lines, but a divided Eleventh Circuit panel reversed. The central legal question was narrow but had enormous financial implications: did Havana Docks have to show the cruise lines used the specific property interest it once held, a concession that would have expired in 2004 anyway, or was it enough that they used the physical docks themselves, property Havana Docks argues remains permanently tainted by the 1960 confiscation? 

The Supreme Court granted certiorari, heard oral argument on February 23, 2026, and issued its decision, written by Justice Thomas, on May 21, 2026.

The cruise lines argued that Havana Docks could only recover if the defendants had trafficked in the actual property interest Havana Docks once owned, and since that concession would have expired in 2004 regardless of the confiscation, Havana Docks had no live interest left to protect by the time the cruises ran from 2016 to 2019. 

Havana Docks argued that the statute's text makes anyone who uses property that was confiscated liable to whoever held a claim to it at the time of confiscation, regardless of how long that claim would otherwise have lasted, meaning the docks themselves remain tainted property that any user can be sued over.

An 8–1 Court sided with Havana Docks, holding that the statute's reference to "property which was confiscated" covers both the physical property and the plaintiff's interest in it, so a defendant's use of the property itself is enough to trigger liability even if the original interest would have expired on its own. Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justice Kavanaugh, wrote separately to flag concerns about how far the ruling's logic could reach, and about a statutory exception for lawful travel to Cuba that the lower court will now need to address on remand. 

Justice Kagan dissented alone, warning that treating expired, decades-old property interests as if they were perpetual could expose an enormous range of ordinary commercial activity in Cuba to massive liability, potentially for triple damages, in this, the first time the Court has interpreted this part of the thirty-year-old law.