CC/Devas (Mauritius) Limited v. Antrix Corp. Ltd.

Personal jurisdiction exists under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) when a statutory immunity exception applies and the foreign defendant has been properly served; the statute does not impose an additional requirement of showing "minimum contacts" under the Due Process Clause. Justice Samuel Alito authored the unanimous opinion of the Court. The FSIA provides that a federal court has personal jurisdiction over a foreign state if two express conditions are met: the court has subject-matter jurisdiction through one of the FSIA’s exceptions to immunity, and the foreign sovereign has been served in accordance with the statute’s rules. These two requirements are sufficient and exhaustive: once both are satisfied, personal jurisdiction “shall exist.” The statute does not mention “minimum contacts,” a test developed in general personal jurisdiction doctrine. Reading an unwritten minimum-contacts requirement into the jurisdictional provision would contradict the statutory text and undermine the structure of the FSIA, which was designed to be a comprehensive and predictable framework for assessing when foreign sovereigns can be sued in U.S. courts. Minimum contacts are not needed apart from the contacts already built into the FSIA’s immunity exceptions themselves. Some exceptions, such as for commercial activity with effects in the United States, inherently require significant U.S.-related conduct and may by themselves satisfy due process standards. But that satisfaction arises from the statutory design, not because §1330(b) of the FSIA incorporates constitutional due process standards.