August 22, 2025 — Belly of the Beast
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit has allowed a Cuban-American man who claims to own shares of Havana’s José Martí International Airport to sue American Airlines.
The lawsuit stems from Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which allows U.S. claimants whose property was nationalized during the Cuban revolution to sue companies that do business involving those properties. The law was passed in 1996, but Title III was consistently suspended by U.S. presidents until Trump activated it in 2019.
Dozens of suits have been filed since. While experts agree that Title III was mainly designed to dissuade European companies from investing in Cuba in the 1990s, former President Obama’s detente with the island and the cascade of U.S. investments that followed made U.S. companies like American Airlines liable.
At the same time, Title III’s activation has soured third-country investors on Cuba, dealing another blow to a country already battered by a raft of U.S. sanctions.
The 11th Circuit’s decision overrules a Florida federal judge who had dismissed the lawsuit.
For more about Title III and the campaign that convinced Trump to activate it, read our article Billboards and Backchannels and watch our video.
