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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. President Trump broke

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Speaker 1: with twenty two years of president last month when he

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Speaker 1: activated a controversial provision of one of the laws that

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Speaker 1: enforced the US embargo against Cuba, and the first wave

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Speaker 1: of text test cases has been filed in courts with

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Speaker 1: Cuban exile suing multinational companies to get back property that

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Speaker 1: was seized by the government during the Cuban Revolution. Joining

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Speaker 1: me is Jonathan Levin, Bloomberg News Miami Bureau Chief. So, Jonathan,

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Speaker 1: they call these test cases for good reasons. The plaintiffs

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Speaker 1: not only have to try cases with evidence that's six

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Speaker 1: decades old, but they're suing under this law that's just

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Speaker 1: been put into effect. Explain some of the hurdles they face. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's exactly right. I mean, so effectively, what's happening here

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Speaker 1: is is we have exiles from from Cuba who are

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Speaker 1: trying to get compensation in some way for the property

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Speaker 1: that their families lost decades and decades ago when Castro

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Speaker 1: Is sort of first came to power. And in order

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Speaker 1: to do that through US courts, they need to first

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Speaker 1: prove in many cases that they actually owned the property. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, So you see families marshaling these these deeds

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Speaker 1: that are a hundred years old and from from Cuba.

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Speaker 1: So verifying those those things, if they haven't already been

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Speaker 1: officially verified, could prove somewhat tricky. And then you have

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Speaker 1: to think about how you're going to actually collect on

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Speaker 1: these these claims. So obviously collecting from the government of

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Speaker 1: Cuba is extremely difficult. So what we've what we've seen

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Speaker 1: is a sort of strategy from these families to go

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Speaker 1: after multinational companies, which presumably will also have assets not

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Speaker 1: just in Cuba but also in the US mainland that

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Speaker 1: if they get a ruling in their favor, um they

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Speaker 1: could theoretically seize those assets and game compensation that way.

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Speaker 1: So the Justice Department has certified some six thousand claims

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Speaker 1: worth about eight billion dollars at current value by Cuban Americans.

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Speaker 1: Are those certified? Does that certification play in this anywhere?

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Speaker 1: Does that prove anything in a court. Absolutely. I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think it's very very clear that you're at a huge,

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Speaker 1: huge advantage if you are one of the certified claimants.

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Speaker 1: And that's why most of the cases that we've seen

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Speaker 1: thus far are from certified claimants. They've already gone before this, uh,

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Speaker 1: this Foreign Claim Settlement Commission, and they've essentially presented all

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Speaker 1: of the evidence that they have, and the the United

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Speaker 1: States government has has effectively said, yes, yes, we uh, yes,

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Speaker 1: we believe that that was in fact your property. Is

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Speaker 1: there is there any problem with suing under this law itself?

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Speaker 1: Is there any legal question about whether they can sue

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Speaker 1: under this law? Well, I mean certainly there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of questions as to the fairness of the law

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Speaker 1: under international law. And that's where we hear uh sort

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Speaker 1: of the European Union and Canada crying foul because in

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Speaker 1: their view, this is an extra territorial sort of power

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Speaker 1: grab by by the United States to to say We're

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Speaker 1: going to exert our will on a territory that at

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Speaker 1: this point in time doesn't doesn't have anything to do

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Speaker 1: with us, right, so, uh. The Europeans, for instance, feel

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Speaker 1: that if one of their sort of citizen corporations is

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Speaker 1: targeted in in this um. They say, you know, how

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Speaker 1: is that fair for us? If a European company went

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Speaker 1: and decided to do business on the island well after

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Speaker 1: the Cuban Revolution, well after these properties were actually seized,

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Speaker 1: why should they be held responsible at this point in time?

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Speaker 1: And perhaps that's why every president since Bill Clinton waived

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Speaker 1: the lawsuit provision in the Helms Burton Act to avoid

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Speaker 1: this friction with other countries. Why is why is the

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Speaker 1: Trump administration at this point allowing this to go forward?

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Speaker 1: If you know, it seems very much to be in

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Speaker 1: relation to what has happened with Venezuela. Right The Trump

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Speaker 1: administration accuses Cuba of being a major force in Venezuela.

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Speaker 1: They say that Cuban intelligence and military resources have helped

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Speaker 1: Nicholas Madoro remain in power there, and so essentially they

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Speaker 1: wanted they wanted to raise the pressure against the Cuban regime,

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Speaker 1: uh theoretically to to get them to stop supporting Madoro

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Speaker 1: in Venezuela. So, Carnival Cruise Line is one of the

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Speaker 1: companies being sued. It's being sued for docking at ports

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Speaker 1: that were nationalized by Cuba. It's filed a motion to

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Speaker 1: dismiss the cases. Do you know the basis for that motion. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The general argument is is that under Helms Burton. Again,

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Speaker 1: this is according to Carnival's motion, under Helms Barton Burton,

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Speaker 1: there was supposed supposedly a carve out for lawful travel

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Speaker 1: to the island, and Carnival is essentially saying that it

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Speaker 1: falls into that category of saying, look, at the time

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Speaker 1: that we started conducting cruises to the island of Cuba

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Speaker 1: and docking there on properties that are subject to one

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Speaker 1: of these cases. Uh, we were just doing uh, acting

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Speaker 1: at according with the law it was. It was then legal,

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Speaker 1: uh under President Obama's sort of reprochement with with Cuba,

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Speaker 1: it was legal to start taking passengers to the island,

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Speaker 1: and they did so that's their argument. Um, do you

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Speaker 1: know how many of these I mean, these cases are

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Speaker 1: very you know, difficult to bring I assume and to

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Speaker 1: martial all the evidence and everything that we've talked about.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any idea how many potential claimants there

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Speaker 1: are under this Sure At a State Department briefing shortly

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Speaker 1: after all this went into effect, or actually approximately around

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Speaker 1: the time when it was going into effect, they floated

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Speaker 1: the idea that in addition to the six thousand certified claims,

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Speaker 1: there could be another two hundred thousand out there. Now,

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Speaker 1: that's sort of an eye popping number. And leading up

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Speaker 1: to this, it led people to believe, oh my gosh,

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Speaker 1: there once the floodgates open, courts could just be clogged

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Speaker 1: up with all of these cases. I think that is

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Speaker 1: it is rather telling that we are now four or

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Speaker 1: five weeks after implementation of Helms Burton Title three and

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Speaker 1: we're still only looking at about four cases. Now that maybe,

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Speaker 1: as you alluded to it at the outset, Uh, that

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Speaker 1: may simply be because everybody's waiting around to see how

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Speaker 1: court's rule in these initial cases before uh, sort of

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Speaker 1: putting all all their resources behind their own cases. Well,

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Speaker 1: it is just fascinating to read your article about this

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Speaker 1: and and these cases are just going to be so

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Speaker 1: interesting to watch. Thank you so much for joining us. Jonathan.

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Speaker 1: That's Jonathan leviny Is, Bloomberg News Miami Bureau Chief. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe

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Speaker 1: and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and

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Speaker 1: on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso this

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Speaker 1: is Bloomberg,