$440 Million Helms-Burton Judgment Against Four Cruise Lines Over Confiscated Havana Docks

Havana Docks Corporation, a U.S. company, once held a long-term concession to operate the marine terminals at the Port of Havana. In 1960, Fidel Castro's government seized the property and paid nothing for it. The company never got its terminals back. Decades later, between 2016 and 2019, four of the world's largest cruise operators began bringing American passengers to those same docks.

In 1996, Congress passed the Helms-Burton Act. Title III of that law lets U.S. nationals sue anyone who "traffics" in property the Cuban government confiscated, but every president suspended the provision until 2019. Once the suspension lifted, Havana Docks sued Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and MSC, arguing that each company had profited from the very terminals taken from it.

Colson Hicks Eidson served as lead trial counsel for Havana Docks. Roberto Martinez led the team, working with Stephanie Casey, Zachary Lipshultz, Aziza Elayan, Thomas Kroeger, and Sabrina Saieh. The firm proved that each line had used the confiscated docks to bring cruise passengers ashore and back aboard, and that those voyages fell outside the law's narrow exception for lawful travel.

In 2022, U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom in Miami agreed. She found all four companies liable and entered judgment of about $439 million, an amount widely reported as roughly $440 million. It was the first money judgment of its kind under Title III.

The cruise lines appealed, and the Eleventh Circuit set the award aside. That court reasoned that the Havana Docks concession would have expired on its own terms in 2004, so the later voyages did not count as trafficking in property the company still held.

On May 21, 2026, the Supreme Court reversed the appeals court by a vote of 8 to 1. Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas held that once property is confiscated, a party that later uses it can be liable regardless of what would have happened to the original owner's interest. Justice Elena Kagan was the lone dissenter. The decision reinstates the judgment but returns the case to the lower court, where the companies may still press remaining defenses before the roughly $440 million becomes final.