Summary: US Supreme Court rules 6-3 for ExxonMobil Exxon claims over $1 billion for seized Cuban assets Helms-Burton Act Title III enables lawsuits against Cuba The U.S. Supreme Court made it easier on Tuesday for U.S. companies to seek compensation from Cuba's government for property seized decades ago by former leader Fidel Castro's government, ruling in favor of ExxonMobil in its lawsuit against Cuban state-owned firm Corporación CIMEX. In a 6-3 decision, the court said a legal defense called foreign sovereign immunity, which generally prohibits U.S. lawsuits against foreign governments and their agents, is not available in cases like the one Exxon brought against CIMEX under a 1996 U.S. law called the Helms-Burton Act. The court's six conservative justices were in the majority, while its three liberal justices dissented from the ruling. The Supreme Court reversed a lower court's 2024 ruling that CIMEX could invoke the sovereign immunity defense. The decision removes a major obstacle Exxon faced in its 2019 lawsuit that accused CIMEX of unlawfully using a refinery and service stations that once belonged to Standard Oil, Exxon's corporate predecessor. The case will return to a lower court for further deliberations on CIMEX's potential liability. A Helms-Burton Act provision called Title III permits lawsuits to be filed in U.S. courts against anyone who "traffics" in property confiscated by Cuba's communist government after the 1959 revolution that brought Castro to power. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration supported Exxon's appeal to the Supreme Court. U.S.-CUBA TENSIONS The ruling was issued ​at a rancorous time in U.S.-Cuban relations. The United States on May 20 brought murder charges against former Cuban President Raúl Castro, Fidel's younger brother, in a major escalation in Trump's pressure campaign against Cuba's government. Under Trump, the United States has effectively imposed a blockade on Cuba by threatening sanctions on countries ⁠supplying it with fuel, triggering power outages and exacerbating its worst crisis in decades. Exxon's suit involved Fidel Castro's confiscation of all of the U.S. energy company's Cuban oil and gas assets in 1959, which represented a loss valued at $70 million at the time. Exxon's current claim is now valued at more than $1 billion because of interest and the potential for enhanced damages. According to Exxon, its assets were transferred to CIMEX, Cuba's largest state-owned conglomerate. CIMEX continues to hold and profit from the confiscated property. Exxon's lawsuit was part of a flood of about 40 lawsuits filed under the Helms-Burton Act in 2019 and 2020 because of a change in U.S. policy toward Cuba during Trump's first term. When it passed the Helms-Burton Act, Congress authorized the U.S. president to suspend Title III on national security grounds. The provision was then suspended by three presidents seeking to avoid diplomatic conflicts with allies like Canada and Spain whose companies have invested in Cuba. Trump lifted that suspension in 2019. Lower court rulings had made it difficult for U.S. companies to prevail in such cases, with most lawsuits being dismissed on jurisdictional or procedural grounds. CRUISE DISPUTE The decision was one of two issued by the Supreme Court this year in cases involving the Helms-Burton Act and Cuba. In the other case, the court delivered a setback on May 21 to four American cruise operators that contested $440 million in combined judgments in litigation brought by a U.S. company called Havana Docks Corporation accusing them of unlawfully using docks in Cuba that it built and were later ​seized. The justices set aside a lower court's decision to throw out the judgments ‌against Carnival, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Cruises and MSC Cruises that were awarded to Havana Docks. The Supreme Court's decision sent the case back to the lower court for it to consider other defenses offered by the cruise lines. (Reporting by Jan Wolfe; Editing by Will Dunham)

Summary: U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit issues order Trump administration's plan to cut CFPB workforce by two-thirds blocked Justice Department's motion to resume cuts rejected by appeals court   On June 19, a federal appeals court blocked the Trump administration's plans to immediately slash the workforce at the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by about two-thirds, delivering a setback to the White House's protracted efforts to shrink the consumer watchdog. The order from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit came in response to a revised plan the Justice Department submitted in late March following repeated legal defeats over its plans to decimate if not eliminate the CFPB. The appeals court had been reviewing the administration's appeal of a March 2025 injunction by a federal district court judge which temporarily barred the mass terminations. The Justice Department, which previously tried to cut up to 90 percent of employees, had argued that it should be permitted to carry out its new plan immediately. It also argued that the case should be returned to the district judge with a 45-day deadline to reassess the injunction. The appeals court granted the administration's motion to return the case to the district court, but rejected the requests to resume staff cuts or impose a deadline on the district judge. The CFPB was created by Congress after the 2008 financial crash to police consumer financial products. Trump and other high-ranking officials have called for the agency ​to be abolished, accusing it of being a politicized burden on free enterprise. Democrats and agency defenders say damaging ​the agency amounts to ​a giveaway to ⁠industry at the expense of consumers. Barred legally from enacting the most drastic actions, the administration has taken other measures to weaken the agency. In May, the agency said it would reassign all staff to its Washington headquarters, a move likely to drive resignations. Earlier this month, Trump nominated a vocal CFPB critic to head the agency moving forward. (Reporting by Kenrick Cai in San Francisco; Editing by Don Durfee and Andrea Ricci)

Summary: Judge Richard Berman approves dismissal of Halkbank case Prosecutor Michael Lockard cites diplomatic efforts with Turkey Monitor Ernst & Young finds no Halkbank noncompliance A federal judge dismissed on June 17 the U.S. Justice Department's criminal indictment of Halkbank after President Donald Trump's administration reached a deal with the Turkish state-run lender, ending a prosecution brought in 2019. The bank's shares on the Istanbul stock exchange rose as much as 8.4 percent after U.S. District Judge Richard Berman said he had signed off on federal prosecutors' request to end the case. The deal was announced in March but required the judge's approval. The dismissal promised to relieve a lingering irritant between NATO allies Turkey and the United States. Halkbank was charged during Trump's first term with helping Iran evade American economic sanctions. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan once called the case unlawful and "ugly." But the countries are experiencing their best ties in decades since Trump's return to the presidency last year. "The criminal case against our bank ongoing in the United States for years has been definitively and conclusively closed," Halkbank said in a statement. Halkbank Chief Executive Recep Süleyman Özdil said the bank expected its opportunities to access foreign funding would improve. PROSECUTOR CITES DIPLOMATIC NEGOTIATIONS WITH TURKEY U.S. judges have little discretion to reject the terms of deferred prosecution agreements such as the one reached between the Justice Department and Halkbank. At the hearing, prosecutor Michael Lockard of the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office said the agreement to end the case arose out of diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire last year between Israel and Hamas. "Those multilateral efforts included an instrumental role from the government of Turkey," Lockard said. After Erdogan and Trump met last year, the Turkish president expressed hope for a resolution of the Halkbank matter. Erdogan said in October that Trump told him during a September meeting at the White House and in a subsequent phone call that "the Halkbank problem is finished for us." The Justice Department has also said dropping the prosecution would further the U.S. interest in curbing support for Iran. The agreement bars Halkbank from entering transactions that benefit Iran and requires a monitor to review Halkbank's sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance. No money changes hands in the agreement, and the bank did not admit criminal wrongdoing. Halkbank had pleaded not guilty in the case. At a court hearing in March, Berman referenced a letter he received from an advocacy group urging him to press for an explanation as to why there was no financial penalty. The judge did not address the issue at Wednesday's hearing. MONITOR FINDS NO INSTANCES OF HALKBANK NONCOMPLIANCE U.S. prosecutors had accused Halkbank of secretly transferring $20 billion of restricted funds, converting oil revenue into gold and cash to benefit Iranian interests and documenting fake food shipments to justify transfers of oil proceeds. The settlement was announced after the Iran war began in February. Cemal Demirtas, the general manager for research at Istanbul-based Ata Invest, said the dismissal was positive for the bank but largely expected. After the deal was announced in March, the judge paused the case for 90 days to allow Halkbank to demonstrate compliance with its terms. Halkbank hired Ernst & Young to review its compliance policies. When that period lapsed on June 10, prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office asked Berman to formally dismiss the case, writing that the monitor, Ernst & Young, had not found any instances of noncompliance by Halkbank. The case has taken a circuitous path through the U.S. courts. The U.S. Supreme Court last October let stand a lower court's decision that allowed the prosecution to proceed. Halkbank had argued that as a Turkish state-owned entity, it should be immune from legal actions in another country's courts. Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York and Canan Sevgili in Gdansk; Additional reporting by Arda Dipova and Mirac Eren Dereli in Gdansk; Editing by Will Dunham, Rod Nickel