World Wide Demil, L.L.C. v. Nammo, A.S.

51 F. App'x 403
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedNovember 22, 2002
Docket02-1170
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 51 F. App'x 403 (World Wide Demil, L.L.C. v. Nammo, A.S.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

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World Wide Demil, L.L.C. v. Nammo, A.S., 51 F. App'x 403 (4th Cir. 2002).

Opinion

OPINION

PER CURIAM.

This appeal stems from a series of interactions between Plaintiff World Wide Demil, L.L.C. (“WWD”) 1 and Defendant Nammo, A.S. (“Nammo”) during the fall and winter of 1998. WWD alleges that Nammo breached oral and written agreements into which Nammo and WWD had entered, tortiously interfered with WWD’s contracts and business expectations, and conspired to injure WWD’s reputation, trade, and business. The district court awarded summary judgment to Nammo on all counts, and WWD has appealed. We possess jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291. As explained below, we affirm.

I.

The relevant facts are adequately set forth in the district court’s opinion. World Wide Demil, L.L.C. v. Nammo, A.S., No. 00-1992-A, Mem. Op. at 1-6 (E.D.Va. Jan. 18, 2002) (the “Opinion”). We write solely to address Nammo’s contention that this action is barred by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1602 et seq. (the “FSIA”). Subject to several exceptions, the FSIA deprives federal and state courts of jurisdiction to adjudicate claims against foreign states or their instrumen-talities. 28 U.S.C. §§ 1603-1607. A foreign state or instrumentality is defined to include any entity, a majority of whose shares are owned by a foreign country or governmental arm. 28 U.S.C. § 1603(b). An entity that comes within the protection of the FSIA “is entitled to sovereign immunity unless the plaintiff demonstrates that one of the exceptions to sovereign immunity applies.” In re Tamimi, 176 F.3d 274, 278 (4th Cir.1999). If no exception applies, then courts “lack[ ] both statutory subject-matter jurisdiction and ... personal jurisdiction.” Verlinden B.V. v. Cent. Bank of Nigeria, 461 U.S. 480, 485 n. 5, 103 S.Ct. 1962, 76 L.Ed.2d 81 (1983).

We review applications of the FSIA de novo. Tamimi, 176 F.3d at 277. Nammo is a multinational joint venture between the government of Norway, the government of Finland, and SAAB, AB, a publicly *405 held Swedish company. At the time of the acts that are the subject of this suit, the Royal Ministry of Trade and Industry of Norway owned 45% of Nammo; Patria Industries, a governmental instrumentality wholly owned by the Government of Finland, owned 27.5%; and SAAB, AB, owned the remaining 27.5%. Thus, when the ownership interests of Norway and Finland are “pooled,” it appears that a majority of Nammo’s shares were owned by foreign governments or their instrumentalities. Nammo contends that, because a majority of Nammo’s shares were owned by foreign governments or their instrumentalities, Nammo is immune from suit under the FSIA.

Without deciding the propriety of such “pooling” of shares under the FSIA, and without deciding whether Nammo’s ownership through wholly government-owned companies can render Nammo a protected “instrumentality of a foreign state” for purposes of 28 U.S.C. § 1603, we conclude that, with respect to WWD’s breach of confidentiality claim, Nammo has implicitly waived any immunity to which it might otherwise have been entitled; and that, with respect to the remaining claims, Nammo falls outside of the FSIA by virtue of the Commercial Activities Exception.

A.

Under 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(1), “[a] foreign state shall not be immune from the jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of the States in any case ... in which the foreign state has waived its immunity either explicitly or by implication....” As this court has observed, “[w]aiver under the FSIA is rarely accomplished by implication.” Tamimi, 176 F.3d at 278. However, in the legislative history of the FSIA, Congress specified three core examples of implicit waivers: (1) agreement to arbitration in another country; (2) agreement that a contract is governed by the law of a particular country; or (3) filing a responsive pleading without raising the defense of sovereign immunity. See id, (citing H.R.Rep. No. 1487, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 18, reprinted in 1976 U.S.Code Cong. & Admin. News 6604, 6617; S.Rep. No. 1310, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 18). With respect to WWD’s claim of breach of confidentiality, the second form of waiver— agreement that a contract is governed by the law of a particular country — is implicated here. 2

On November 6, 1998, Nammo and WWD entered into the Confidentiality Agreement, which contained a choice of law provision selecting the Commonwealth of Virginia as the forum whose law would govern any disputes that might arise from the Agreement. 3 This clause constitutes an implicit waiver of any immunity to which Nammo might otherwise have been entitled with respect to WWD’s claim that *406 Nammo breached the Confidentiality Agreement. See Eckert Int’l Inc. v. Government of Fiji, 32 F.3d 77, 80 (4th Cir.1994) (“[A] choice of law provision constitutes an implied waiver of ... sovereign immunity.”). Thus, the court had jurisdiction to entertain the breach of confidentiality count.

B.

A waiver of FSIA immunity with respect to one claim does not constitute a waiver with respect to other claims brought in the same suit. See World Wide Minerals, Ltd. v. Republic of Kazakhstan, 296 F.3d 1154, 1164 (D.C.Cir.2002). Thus, although Nammo has implicitly waived its immunity from claims springing from the Confidentiality Agreement, we must also assess whether the court had jurisdiction to entertain WWD’s other claims against Nammo (specifically, tortious interference with contract, tortious interference with prospective business advantage, conspiracy, and breach of oral contract). Even if FSIA immunity attached, the court nonetheless had jurisdiction, because WWD’s remaining claims are based on Nammo’s commercial activities. A portion of those activities occurred here in the United States; and a portion occurred abroad, but directly affected an American corporation.

Under the Commercial Activity Exception to the FSIA, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2),

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