Case Note: US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Holds that Spain Does Not Enjoy Sovereign Immunity from Enforcement of Intra-EU ECT Awards

In its forty-one-page decision, a unanimous three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the D. C. Circuit rejected Spain’s intra-EU objection in the context of both ICSID and New York Convention awards. The D.C. Circuit more specifically held that US District Courts have jurisdiction to enforce intra-EU investor-state awards against EU Member States pursuant to the specific exception to the US Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applying to actions to enforce an award ‘governed by a treaty or other international agreement in force for the United States calling for the recognition and enforcement of arbitral awards’. NextEra Energy Glob. Holdings B.V. v. Kingdom of Spain, Nos. 23–7031, 23–7032, 23–7038, 2024WL 3837484, at *7 (D.C. Cir. 6 August 2024) (‘NextEra’) (citing 28 U.S.C. §1605(a)(6)). At the same time, by a split decision, the Court vacated and remanded the anti-anti-suit injunction in NextEra and 9REN for further consideration by the District Court, given what the Court of Appeals considered the unique context of an anti-anti-suit injunction against a foreign sovereign.