The U.S. Supreme Court recently decided Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela v. Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co., 581 U. S. ____ (2017), which involves the Venezuelan government’s seizure of oil drilling rigs owned by a U.S. company. In a unanimous decision, the Court raised the standard for getting around the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. It held that a case falls within the scope of the statute’s expropriation exception only if the property in which the party claims to hold rights was indeed “property taken in violation of international law.”
