The Ninth Circuit ruled against several Chinese companies seeking to dismiss an indictment for economic espionage involving trade secrets theft from DuPont, emphasizing that mere ownership by a foreign state does not guarantee sovereign immunity. The court referenced previous appeals and a recent Supreme Court ruling delineating that common law applies over the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) in criminal cases, indicating a significant judicial stance on international corporate liability within U.S. jurisdiction.
The mere fact that a foreign state owns and controls a corporation is not sufficient to bring the corporation within the ambit of § 66(g).
The Companies argued they enjoy foreign sovereign immunity because they are owned and controlled by the People's Republic of China, an argument they had made in a previous appeal on different grounds.
The Supreme Court in the meantime held in Halk Bankasi A.S. v. United States... that common law, not the FSIA, governs whether foreign states and their instrumentalities are entitled to foreign sovereign immunity...
The Ninth Circuit noted that in assessing the domain of foreign sovereign immunity from criminal prosecution under federal common law, we are immediately confronted by the near-total lack of directly applicable precedents.
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