On August 7, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit affirmed the dismissal of all claims against TA Law client Seven Properties AG and two other foreign corporate defendants in the matter of Gligorov v. Nation of Brunei, 185 F.4th 1169, No. 24-7150, 2026 WL 2276372 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 7, 2026). The plaintiff had asserted civil RICO and other claims against the corporate defendants which the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia had dismissed for lack of personal jurisdiction.
The appeal presented an important and developing question concerning the limits the Fifth Amendment places on the exercise of personal jurisdiction by federal courts. After the appeal was initially argued, the Supreme Court decided Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization, 606 U.S. 1 (2025), which rejected the proposition that the Fifth Amendment incorporates the Fourteenth Amendment’s minimum-contacts standard for purposes of personal jurisdiction. Overturning established jurisprudence on personal jurisdiction, the Supreme Court explained that the Fifth Amendment permits a more flexible jurisdictional inquiry commensurate with the federal government’s broader sovereign authority than the ‘minimum contacts’ standard required under the Fourteenth Amendment. The D.C. Circuit thereafter ordered supplemental briefing and reargument concerning the appropriate Fifth Amendment standard to be applied in assessing whether personal jurisdiction had been sufficiently pled.
Without determining the governing test for all future cases, the D.C. Circuit held that “for the purposes of this case, the Fifth Amendment requires only that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over a defendant be ‘reasonable,’ and that a reasonable nexus to the United States exists.” Applying that standard, the court concluded that exercising jurisdiction over Seven Properties and the other corporate defendants would be unreasonable because Gligorov failed to establish (1) any meaningful interest in litigating in the United States, (2) any significant U.S. sovereign interest in resolving the dispute, or (3) any circumstances demonstrating that exercising jurisdiction over the foreign defendants would be reasonable. The D.C. Circuit also affirmed the denial of plaintiff’s request for jurisdictional discovery.
TA Law represented Seven Properties in the District Court and on appeal, working closely with Seven Properties’ Swiss counsel, Dr. Guido Urbach of Hafner Urbach Partner, and Guy Reiss of Reiss+Colleagues P.C. Arnold & Porter, which represented co-defendant Audley Property Management Company Limited, presented the appellate oral argument on behalf of all of the corporate defendants.
Read the D.C. Circuit decision in Gligorov here.
Read the Supreme Court’s decision in Fuld here.