Kleinberg Kaplan Representation of the Republic of Angola Featured in Bloomberg and Law360

Kleinberg Kaplan litigation partner Marc Rosen and senior counsel Robert Tuchman last week scored a decisive victory for the Republic of Angola in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in defense of a $1 billion lawsuit brought by Aenergy, S.A., an Angola-based energy company.

As detailed in Bloomberg and Law360, the Second Circuit upheld a New York federal judge’s ruling from May 2021, dismissing Aenergy’s case, which involves the creation and service of power plants in Angola, on the grounds that New York is a genuinely inconvenient forum for resolution of this dispute and that the plaintiff’s lawsuit smacks of “forum shopping.”  Bloomberg notes that the appeals court, relying on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, acknowledged that the Angolan defendants, litigating over Angola power plants and Angolan contracts, and implicating the decisions of Angolan government officials, should not be hauled into a New York court.  Law360 further highlights that, according to the Second Circuit, any perceived connection to New York is not enough to avoid dismissal of the litigation, and that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act does not trump application of the doctrine of forum non conveniens despite Aenergy’s objections to the contrary.

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