United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued May 9, 2005 Decided July 29, 2005
No. 04-7159
JOHN W. PETERSON,
ON BEHALF OF HIMSELF AND OTHERS SIMILARLY SITUATED ,
APPELLANT
v.
THE ROYAL KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA AND
GENERAL ORGANIZATION OF SOCIAL INSURANCE,
AN INSTRUMENTALITY OF THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA,
APPELLEES
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Columbia
(No. 03cv01771)
Stephen A. Saltzburg argued the cause for the appellant. Eric
L. Siegel was on brief.
B. Thomas Peele, III argued the cause for the appellees. John
F. Hundley entered an appearance.
Before: EDWARDS, HENDERSON and TATEL, Circuit Judges.
Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge HENDERSON.
KAREN LECRAFT HENDERSON, Circuit Judge: John Peterson
sued the Royal Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and one of its
agencies, the General Organization of Social Insurance
2
(collectively, Saudi Arabia), seeking to recover mandatory
contributions his employers made to a retirement program.
Finding no exception in the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
(FSIA or Act), 28 U.S.C. §§ 1602 et seq., applicable to
Peterson’s claims, the district court dismissed his law suit for
lack of jurisdiction. See Peterson v. Royal Kingdom of Saudi
Arabia, 332 F. Supp. 2d 189 (D.D.C. 2004), reprinted in Joint
Appendix (J.A.) at 342-58. He now appeals, arguing that Saudi
Arabia is not entitled to sovereign immunity because the FSIA’s
“expropriation” and “commercial activity” exceptions apply to
the claims he presses. Neither exception applies, we conclude,
and thus there is no basis for federal court jurisdiction over
Saudi Arabia for the purpose of Peterson’s suit. We therefore
affirm the district court’s judgment.
I.
We accept as true the facts Peterson alleges in his complaint
and briefly recount them now. 1 In November 1969, Saudi
Arabia established the General Organization of Social Insurance
(GOSI) by Royal Decree “to promote foreign commerce and
attract badly needed foreign workers to Saudi Arabia.” J.A. 3-4.
GOSI has two distinct branches: the Occupational Hazards
Branch, which provides insurance coverage for employment-
related injuries, and the Annuities Branch, which provides
retirement and death benefits.
From 1969 until 1987, Saudi Arabia required employers and
their employees, regardless of national origin or citizenship, to
make contributions to GOSI. Employers were required to
contribute two per cent of their employees’ salaries to the
1
See Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349, 351 (1993) (“Because
this case comes to us on a motion to dismiss the complaint, we assume
that we have truthful factual allegations before us though many of
those allegations are subject to dispute.” (internal citation omitted));
accord World Wide Minerals, Ltd. v. Republic of Kazakhstan, 296
F.3d 1154, 1157 n.2 (D.C. Cir. 2002).
3
Occupational Hazards Branch. Each employer and each
employee were responsible for contributing “thirteen . . . percent
of the total value of the employee’s wages and other benefits” to
the Annuities Branch, the employer contributing eight-per cent
and the employee the remaining five per cent. J.A. 6. “All
contributions,” however, “were made for the benefit of, and in
the name of, the employee.” J.A. 6. GOSI invested the
contributions it received in domestic corporations and
organizations as well as international banks.
In 1987 Saudi Arabia issued Royal Decree No. M/43, “which
excluded non-Saudi workers from GOSI’s Annuit[ies] Branch.”
J.A. 6. The upshot of the Royal Decree was that non-Saudi
workers were no longer eligible for retirement and death
benefits. At some point between 1987 and 1990, however,
Saudi Arabia decided to refund to non-Saudi workers a portion
of the contributions made to the Annuities Branch in their
names. Peterson, who had worked for multiple engineering and
construction companies in Saudi Arabia from 1979 to 1990 and
made contributions to GOSI, applied for and eventually received
in 1988 a refund of the five per cent contribution he made to the
Annuities Branch. Along with his refund check, Peterson
received the following notice: “Attached is a check for the value
of your entitlements, due to you as per the applicable rules for
this purpose. This payment represents your full dues from
GOSI.” J.A. 22.
Peterson alleges that Saudi Arabia failed to publicize the
refund program, failed to explain its decision to refund only five
per cent of the contributions made in his name and failed to
“state when the remaining eight percent would be paid.” J.A. 9.
Throughout June 2003, Peterson contacted the Saudi Arabian
Embassy in Washington, D.C., by telephone, by mail and by
facsimile to ask for a date certain by which he would receive the
remaining eight-per cent contribution his employers made in his
name. Peterson notified the embassy that he would give Saudi
4
Arabia until June 23, 2003 to answer his inquiry and that he
would deem its failure to respond a constructive denial of his
request. He received no answer.
Peterson then sued Saudi Arabia in the district court on August
21, 2003. His complaint alleges four claims based on Saudi
Arabia’s failure to refund the full amount paid into the GOSI
Annuities Branch in his behalf: (1) arbitrary and discriminatory
expropriation of his property in violation of international law;
(2) breach of contract; (3) conversion of his property; and (4)
unjust enrichment. Saudi Arabia subsequently filed a motion to
dismiss, which the district court granted on August 23, 2004.
See Peterson, 332 F. Supp. 2d at 202.
The district court concluded that it lacked jurisdiction to
entertain Peterson’s suit under FSIA because his claims failed to
meet the Act’s “expropriation” or “commercial activity”
exceptions. See id. at 196-201. With respect to the
“expropriation” exception, the district court concluded that “the
eight percent GOSI contribution, characterized by the plaintiff
as an expectation interest in payments, does not qualify as a
right in tangible property and the expropriation exception does
not apply here for that reason.” Id. at 197. “The fact that the
property in question is not ‘tangible’ property is,” it explained,
“dispositive of the question whether the expropriation exception
of the FSIA can apply to defendants.” Id. at 198. Turning to
FSIA’s “commercial activity” exception, the district court found
it inapplicable as well because “[t]he termination of GOSI
benefits for foreign workers is a sovereign, not a commercial,
act and the termination cannot be understood to have had a
‘direct effect’ in the United States.” Id. at 201 (quoting 28
U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2)). The termination was “distinctly
sovereign,” to the court’s mind, because “a private player in the
market certainly could not engage in the particular actions of
initiating, administering, and ending a scheme of mandatory
social insurance.” Id. at 200 (internal quotation marks omitted).
5
And there was no “direct” effect in the United States, the court
explained, because “[b]ased on the record before the Court, it
appears that, to the extent Peterson expected a refund of his
GOSI contributions in a particular place, it can at most be
described as an implied agreement for payment in the United
States.” Id. at 201. In the alternative, the district court further
concluded that Peterson’s claims were “barred under any
applicable statute of limitations.” Id.
He now appeals. See 28 U.S.C. § 1291. On de novo review,
we affirm the judgment of the district court, see Princz v. Fed.
Republic of Germany, 26 F.3d 1166, 1168 (D.C. Cir. 1994)
(foreign government’s entitlement to sovereign immunity is
question of law subject to de novo review), cert. denied, 513
U.S. 1121 (1995), as set forth below.
II.
In the United States, there is only one way for a court to obtain
jurisdiction over a foreign state and it is not a particularly
generous one—the FSIA. See Argentine Republic v. Amerada
Hess Shipping Corp., 488 U.S. 428, 443 (1989) (“[T]he FSIA
provides the sole basis for obtaining jurisdiction over a foreign
state in the courts of this country . . . .”); accord World Wide
Minerals, Ltd. v. Republic of Kazakhstan, 296 F.3d 1154, 1161
(D.C. Cir. 2002). FSIA provides that a district court has
jurisdiction over a civil action against a foreign sovereign for
any claim “with respect to which the foreign state is not entitled
to immunity.” 28 U.S.C. § 1330(a); see World Wide Minerals,
Ltd., 296 F.3d at 1161. But under the Act, a foreign state is
immune from the jurisdiction of federal and state courts alike,
see 28 U.S.C. § 1330(a); id. § 1604, and remains so unless an
international agreement, see id. §§ 1330(a), 1604, or one of
several exceptions in the statute provides otherwise, see id.
§§ 1605, 1607. See Phoenix Consulting, Inc. v. Republic of
Angola, 216 F.3d 36, 39 (D.C. Cir. 2000). In the absence of an
applicable exception, the foreign sovereign’s immunity is
6
“complete”—“[t]he district court lacks subject matter
jurisdiction over the plaintiff’s case.” Id. (citation omitted); see
also Saudi Arabia v. Nelson, 507 U.S. 349, 355 (1993)
(“[U]nless a specified exception applies, a federal court lacks
subject-matter jurisdiction over a claim against a foreign state.”
(citations omitted)). Peterson maintains that Saudi Arabia is not
entitled to sovereign immunity under either of two FSIA
exceptions—the “expropriation” exception or the “commercial
activity” one. We conclude neither applies.
Peterson first maintains that Saudi Arabia is not entitled to
sovereign immunity because it arbitrarily and discriminatorily
expropriated his property in violation of international law.
Under FSIA,
[a] foreign state shall not be immune from the
jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of
the States in any case . . . in which rights in
property taken in violation of international law
are in issue and that property or any property
exchanged for such property is present in the
United States in connection with a commercial
activity carried on in the United States by the
foreign state; or that property or any property
exchanged for such property is owned or
operated by an agency or instrumentality of the
foreign state and that agency or instrumentality
is engaged in a commercial activity in the United
States.
28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3). Thus, for a claim to fit within this
statutory exception, it must meet three requirements: At issue
must be (1) “rights in property” that (2) were taken in violation
of international law and (3) the property at issue (or any
property exchanged for it) must either (a) be present in the
United States “in connection with a commercial activity carried
on in the United States by the foreign state” or (b) “owned or
7
operated by an agency or instrumentality of the foreign state and
that agency or instrumentality” engages in commercial activity
in the United States. Id. Our analysis begins and ends with the
exception’s first two requirements. See id.
The parties make assorted arguments regarding whether the
eight-per cent GOSI contributions made by Peterson’s
employers on his behalf constitute a “right[] in property”—i.e.,
the parties dispute whether the eight-per cent contribution
constitutes property at all, what kind of property it is—tangible
or intangible—and, if it is property, to whom it in fact belongs.
They direct most of their attention to the question whether the
employers’ GOSI contributions constitute tangible or intangible
property. Saudi Arabia contends that FSIA’s expropriation
exception encompasses only tangible property (such as physical
assets), not intangible property (such as a right to receive
payment), and therefore does not apply to Peterson’s employers’
GOSI contributions, which it characterizes as securing an
“[e]xpectation interest[] in social insurance benefits.” See
Appellees’ Br. at 14. Peterson disagrees, arguing that such a
cramped interpretation is “shortsighted, overly formalistic and
contradicts Congressional intent,” Appellant’s Br. at 12, and that
his employers’ GOSI contributions constitute tangible property
in any event.
The parties’ focus on this question is not surprising inasmuch
as the district court found the question pivotal, as have other
district courts. Some courts have held that the term “property”
as used in FSIA’s expropriation exception “means physical
property not the right to receive payment.” Lord Day & Lord v.
Socialist Republic of Vietnam, 134 F. Supp. 2d 549, 560
(S.D.N.Y. 2001) (internal quotation marks & citations omitted)
(expropriation exception inapplicable because claim based on
entitlement to funds was “fatally flawed”); accord, e.g.,
Sampson v. Fed. Republic of Germany, 975 F. Supp. 1108, 1117
(N.D. Ill. 1997) (expropriation exception inapplicable to claim
8
not involving “loss of tangible property” because “property
under this section refers to tangible property” (internal quotation
marks & citation omitted)), aff’d, 250 F.3d 1145 (7th Cir. 2001);
Intercontinental Dictionary Series v. De Gruyter, 822 F. Supp.
662, 678 (C.D. Cal. 1993) (“intangible intellectual property
rights or the right to receive payment on a contract alleged by
IDS are not grounds for applying the [expropriation]
exception”); Canadian Overseas Ores Ltd. v. Compania de
Acero del Pacifico S.A., 528 F. Supp. 1337, 1346 (S.D.N.Y.
1982) (expropriation exception inapplicable to breach of
contract claim because it “is on its face inapplicable to a
contractual right to be paid”), aff’d, 727 F.2d 274 (2d Cir. 1984);
see generally De Sanchez v. Banco Cent. de Nicaragua, 770 F.
2d 1385, 1395 (5th Cir. 1985) (declining to decide issue but
citing cases); cf. Hirsh v. State of Israel, 962 F. Supp. 377, 383
(S.D.N.Y. 1997) (assuming reparation payments were
expropriated, exception “nevertheless . . . inapplicable, as it has
been interpreted to apply only to the expropriation of tangible
property, not to the right to receive payments”). In fact, this
case is not the only instance in which our Circuit’s district court
has analyzed the tangible/intangible distinction in assessing
subject matter jurisdiction under FSIA’s expropriation
exception. See Rong v. Liaoning Provincial Gov’t, 362 F. Supp.
2d 83, 101 (D.D.C. 2005) (“[T]he FSIA applies where the
property at issue is tangible property.” (internal quotation marks
& citation omitted)). Arguing against this precedent, Peterson
relies on a Ninth Circuit decision construing the Second
Hickenlooper Amendment, 22 U.S.C. § 2370(e)(2),2 in which
2
The Second Hickenlooper Amendment constitutes the Congress ’s
response to the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Banco
Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398 (1964), which held an
expropriation claim barred by the act of state doctrine. See id. at 428
(“[W]e decide only that the Judicial Branch will not examine the
validity of a taking of property within its own territory by a foreign
sovereign government . . . even if the complaint alleges that the taking
9
the court observed that “the tangible/intangible characterization
of property interests . . . is a distinction without a difference.”
West v. Multibanco Comermex, S.A., 807 F.2d 820, 830 (9th Cir.
1987). For our part, we have not decided the question and need
not do so today.
Regardless whether the eight-per cent GOSI contributions
constitute tangible or intangible property or what significance,
if any, the latter classification may carry under FSIA’s
expropriation exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), Peterson has
failed to allege sufficient facts demonstrating that the
contributions constitute a “right[] in property” in the first place.
Peterson maintains that his “substantial cash investments in
GOSI” constitute tangible property. Complaint at 13, ¶ 58,
reprinted in J.A. at 13. But his contributions were not placed in
a private account in his name; rather, if GOSI had remained in
force with respect to foreign workers, the contributions Peterson
(and his employers) made would have been returned to him in
the form of an annuity upon his retirement at age 60, provided
he met certain conditions. See J.A. 216-17. The annuity,
moreover, would not have been based on his five-per cent and
violates customary international law.”). The Second Hickenlooper
Amendment provides in part:
[N]o court in the United States shall decline on the
ground of the federal act of state doctrine to make a
determination on the merits giving effect to the
principles of international law in a case in whi c h a
claim of title or other right to property is asserted by
any party including a foreign state (or a party
claiming through such state) based upon (or traced
through) a confiscation or other taking . . . by an act
of that state in violation of the principles of
international law, including the principles of
compensation . . . .
22 U.S.C. § 2370(e)(2).
10
his employers’ eight-per cent contributions to GOSI but instead
on the average monthly wages he received in the two years
preceding his retirement. See J.A. 217 (According to Saudi
Arabia’s Social Insurance Law base amount is “computed by
multiplying one-fiftieth of the average monthly wages by the
number of insurance years.”). Peterson’s counsel made two
concessions at oral argument that confirm that Peterson had no
right, contractual or otherwise, to this benefit stream, which
resembles our Social Security system more than a
pension—such as a 401(k) plan. Peterson’s counsel conceded
both that Peterson was not guaranteed a return of the eight-per
cent contributions his employers made to GOSI in his behalf,
see Tr. of Oral Argument at 32:39, and that Saudi Arabia could
have unilaterally eliminated the GOSI program for all workers,
foreign and domestic, see Tr. of Oral Argument at 4:37. Taken
together, these factors rebut Peterson’s assertion that his and his
employers’ contributions to GOSI constitute “rights in property”
of which he was deprived in derogation of international law.
See Brewer v. Socialist People’s Republic of Iraq, 890 F.2d 97,
101 (8th Cir. 1989) (expropriation exception inapplicable
because “breach of contract did not create ‘rights in property’ ”);
see also Human Rights in China v. Bank of China, No. 02 Civ.
4361, 2005 WL 1278542, at *6 (S.D.N.Y. May 27, 2005)
(expropriation exception inapplicable because plaintiff had “no
legal right to the property” after funds transferred to third party).
Peterson nonetheless makes two arguments to the contrary,
neither of which we find persuasive. Citing various
authorities—from another circuit’s opinion, Altmann v. Republic
of Austria, 317 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2002), to a decision of the
European Court of Human Rights, Skórkiewicz v. Poland (dec.),
App. 39860/98, Eur. Ct. H.R. (1999), reprinted in J.A. at 74, to
a law review article, Diego Rodríguez-Pinzón & Claudia Martin,
The International Human Rights Status of Elderly Persons, 18
AM . U. INT ’L L. REV. 915 (2003)—Peterson first contends that
we should heed emerging international norms prohibiting a
11
government’s taking of a person’s property interest in his
contributions to a pension plan. But, as we noted, the GOSI
program is not a pension plan but a social insurance system.
Thus it is of no moment that Saudi Arabia’s Royal Decree No.
M/43 affected only one group of GOSI’s beneficiaries, viz., non-
Saudi employees. Citing United States Supreme Court cases,
including Kaiser Aetna v. United States, 444 U.S. 164 (1979)
and Perry v. Sindermann, 408 U.S. 593 (1972), as well as ours,
Nixon v. United States, 978 F.2d 1269 (D.C. Cir. 1992) and Hall
v. Ford, 856 F.2d 255 (D.C. Cir. 1988), for the notion that
property is “made up of mutually reinforcing understandings,”
Nixon, 978 F.2d at 1275, Peterson additionally argues that his
employers’ eight-per cent GOSI contributions constitute his
property because Saudi Arabia treated it as such by refunding to
him his five-per cent GOSI contribution. “[T]here is no
common sense, or legal difference between the ownership of the
5% contribution and the 8% contribution made by the employer
in the employee’s name,” his argument goes. Appellant’s Br. at
23. While it is debatable that Saudi Arabia’s refund of
Peterson’s five-per cent contribution to GOSI represents a
“mutual[] . . . understanding[]” that the contribution was
Peterson’s property, it is indisputable that the refund does not
further represent a “mutual[] . . . understanding[]” that his
employers’ eight-per cent contributions also constituted
Peterson’s property inasmuch as the refund notified Peterson
that the refund constituted “full dues from GOSI.” J.A. 22.
Peterson next maintains that FSIA’s “commercial activity”
exception supplies the necessary jurisdiction. Under this
exception,
[a] foreign state shall not be immune from the
jurisdiction of courts of the United States or of
the States in any case . . . in which the action is
based upon a commercial activity carried on in
the United States by the foreign state; or upon an
12
act performed in the United States in connection
with a commercial activity of the foreign state
elsewhere; or upon an act outside the territory of
the United States in connection with a
commercial activity of the foreign state
elsewhere and that act causes a direct effect in
the United States.
28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2). A foreign state is subject to jurisdiction
under this exception based upon any of three distinct types of
commercial activity: “commercial activity carried on in the
United States,” an “act performed in the United States in
connection with a commercial activity . . . elsewhere,” or an “act
outside the territory of the United States in connection with a
commercial activity . . . elsewhere” which “causes a direct effect
in the United States.” Id.
Peterson asserts that his claim is based upon the third type—an
act that (1) takes place “outside the territory of the United
States”; (2) “in connection with a commercial activity of the
foreign state elsewhere”; and (3) “causes a direct effect in the
United States.” Id. The act that took place outside the United
States, he says, is Saudi Arabia’s 1987 Royal Decree excluding
non-Saudi employees from GOSI, Royal Decree No. M/43. The
Decree was issued “in connection with a commercial activity,”
he continues, because the “act of investing the employee
contributions in private companies and providing loans to
private industry constituted commercial activity,” Appellant’s
Br. at 36-37, and because the retirement system was established
for an “overriding commercial purpose”—i.e., “to attract highly
skilled foreign workers . . . to live and work in Saudi Arabia for
the purpose of developing the country’s infrastructure,”
Appellant’s Br. at 38. The Royal Decree caused a “direct
effect” in the United States, Peterson concludes, because Saudi
Arabia is “accustomed to sending refund checks to be deposited
in bank accounts in the United States and [its] failure to send a
13
full refund has thus caused [a] direct effect in the United States.”
Appellant’s Br. at 40.
Whatever the merit of Peterson’s arguments regarding the first
two requirements, we conclude that his claim fails the final
one—i.e., that the “commercial activity” causes a “direct effect”
in the United States. In Republic of Argentina v. Weltover, Inc.,
504 U.S. 607 (1992), the Supreme Court defined the term
“direct effects”; “an effect is ‘direct,’ ” the Weltover Court said,
“if it follows ‘as an immediate consequence of the defendant’s
. . . activity.’ ” Id. at 618 (quoting & citing Weltover, Inc. v.
Republic of Argentina, 941 F.2d 145, 152 (2d Cir. 1991))
(ellipsis by Court). The Weltover Court concluded that
Argentina’s unilateral rescheduling of the maturity dates of
certain bonds caused a “direct effect” in the United States
because the payees “had designated their accounts in New York
as the place of payment, and Argentina made some interest
payments into those accounts before announcing that it was
rescheduling the payments.” 504 U.S. at 618-19. “Because
New York was thus the place of performance for Argentina’s
ultimate contractual obligations,” the Court explained, “the
rescheduling of those obligations necessarily had a ‘direct
effect’ in the United States: Money that was supposed to have
been delivered to a New York bank for deposit was not
forthcoming.” Id. at 619. We applied Weltover in Goodman
Holdings v. Rafidain Bank, 26 F.3d 1143 (D.C. Cir. 1994), and
concluded that no “direct effect” in the United States resulted
from an Iraqi bank’s failure to honor letters of credit because
that failure resulted in “no ‘immediate consequence’ in the
United States.” Id. at 1146 (quoting Weltover, 504 U.S. at 618).
We found “[t]he situation . . . quite different” from Weltover
because “[n]either New York nor any other United States
location was designated as the ‘place of performance’ where
money was ‘supposed’ to have been paid” to the plaintiffs. Id.
(quoting Weltover, 504 U.S. at 619). We explained that the
bank “might well have paid them from funds in United States
14
banks but it might just as well have done so from accounts
located outside of the United States.” 26 F.3d at 1146-47.
Peterson’s allegations fail to demonstrate that Saudi Arabia
was “ ‘supposed’ to” refund his GOSI contribution to him in the
United States. See id. at 1146 (quoting Weltover, 504 U.S. at
619). In his complaint, he asserted that he “and other foreign
workers, their employers, GOSI, and the Saudi Government all
understood that Plaintiff would return to the United States and
that GOSI benefits would be remitted here,” Complaint at 7,
¶ 28, reprinted in J.A. at 7, and that he “believed that his
contributions to GOSI would be returned to him in the United
States.” Complaint at 7, ¶ 29, reprinted in J.A. at 7. In his brief
to us, he further states that he submitted to the district court
“numerous declarations . . . from other foreign workers similarly
situated demonstrating that [Saudi Arabia was] accustomed to
refunding the GOSI contributions in the United States” and that
“remittances of GOSI annuity benefits . . . were to be sent to the
last known addresses of covered employees.” Appellant’s Br.
at 40 & n.10. These assertions evidence no agreement—implied
or express—that Peterson was to be paid in the United States.
In fact, he was not paid in the United States. Although he
claims to have made “special arrangements,” Appellant’s Br. at
40, Peterson not only received his refund in Saudi Arabia but
deposited it in a Saudi bank as well—the entire transaction
occurred outside the United States. Moreover, Peterson’s
counsel stated below that Saudi Arabia “represented” to non-
Saudi employees that it would refund GOSI contributions
“wherever the workers lived,” J.A. 320, so that, if Peterson
chose to reside outside the United States, Saudi Arabia would
have returned his contribution to him there, see J.A. 320 (“Of
course, if [Peterson] moved to another country, he would have
asked to be paid elsewhere and he would have been paid
elsewhere.”). Thus, similar to the situation in Goodman
Holdings, Saudi Arabia “might well have paid” Peterson or
another employee in the United States “but it might just as well
15
have done so” outside the United States. 26 F.3d at 1146-47;
see also Princz, 26 F.3d at 1172 (“A ‘direct effect’ . . . is one
which has no intervening element, but, rather, flows in a straight
line without deviation or interruption.” (internal quotation marks
& citation omitted)). Accordingly, the “commercial activity”
exception does not provide any court in the United States with
the jurisdiction necessary to entertain Peterson’s suit against
Saudi Arabia.
* * *
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is
affirmed.
So ordered.