18 U.S.C. § 1862; West Hills Farms, LLC v. ClassicStar Farms, Inc., 2013 U.S. App. LEXIS 14518 (6th Cir. Ky. 2013).However, there is also a civil RICO component that permits private parties to sue other private businesses or individuals under a similar theory that the defendant has engaged in racketeering activity that has injured the private party. 18 U.S.C. § 1964. “Any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of section 1962 of this chapter [18 USCS § 1962] may sue therefor in any appropriate United States district court and shall recover threefold the damages he sustains and the cost of the suit, including a reasonable attorney’s fee.” 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c).

y. It also leaves open the possibility of treble damages and recovery of litigation costs.Foreign plaintiffs may be able to increase their odds of having a “domestic injury” by confirming the relevant arbitration award in the United States and receiving a US judgment. However, other factors will also impact the inquiry, such as where the racketeering activity was directed from and targeted at, as well as the location of the defendant. Ultimately, whether there is a “domestic injury” for purposes of RICO will need to be analyzed on a case-by-case basis.Footnotes[1] Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 599 U. S. ____, *14 (2023). [2] Smagin v. Yegiazaryan, No. 2:14-CV-09764, (C.D. Cal. Feb 04, 2015) (order granting stay of proceedings and preliminary injunction). [3] Smagin v. Yegiazaryan, 37 F.4th 562, 565 (9th Cir. 2022), cert. granted, 143 S. Ct. 645 (2023), and cert. granted sub nom. CMB Monaco v. Smagin, 214 L. Ed. 2d 382, 143 S. Ct. 646 (2023), and aff'd and remanded, 599 U. S. ____ (2023). [4] 18 U.S.C. §1964(c)[5] 18 U.S.C. §1962(c). [6] 18 U.S.C. §1962(d). [7] 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). [8] RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U.S. 325, 346 (2016). [9] Id. at 354. [10] Humphrey v. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, 905 F.3d 694, 701, 707 (3d Cir. 2018). [11] Bascunan v. Elsaca, 927 F.3d 108, 119 (2d Cir. 2019); see also Bascunan v. Elsaca, 874 F.3d 806 (2d Cir. 2017). [12] Armada (Singapore) PTE Ltd. v. Amcol Int'l Corp., 885 F.3d 1090, 1093–95 (7th Cir. 2018), abrogated by Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, 599 U. S. ____ (2023). [13] Smagin v. Compagnie Monegasque De Banque, No. 220CV11236RGKPLA, 2021 WL 2124254, *4 (C.D. Cal. 2021), rev'd and remanded sub nom. Smagin v. Yegiazaryan, 37 F.4th 562 (9th Cir. 2022), cert. granted, 143 S. Ct. 645 (2023), and cert. granted sub nom. CMB Monaco v. Smagin, 214 L. Ed. 2d 382, 143 S. Ct. 646 (2023), and aff'd and remanded, 599 U. S. ____ (2023). [14] Smagin v. Yegiazaryan, 37 F.4th 562, 567 (9th Cir. 2022), aff'd and remanded, 599 U. S. ____ (2023). [15] Id. at 568. [16]

ght to enforce federal law—typically the purview of federal prosecutors—against any retail pharmacy that mails abortion-producing medications within, to, or from jurisdictions that are less restrictive with respect to abortions.18 U.S.C. § 1461 (mailing obscene or crime-inciting matter), the proverbial hammer cited in the two warning letters, criminalizes using the mail to send any medicine, among other things, for the purposes of “producing” an abortion. Perhaps acknowledging the atypical nature of a state Attorney General attempting to invoke a federal criminal statute, the twenty state Attorneys General here cross-reference a federal anti-racketeering statute, known as the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”). 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961 et seq. Section 1461 is among the statutes listed in the definition of “racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). Therefore, the warning letters highlight that a violation of § 1461 could give rise to civil liability under RICO. See 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c). In turn, the state Attorneys General contend that they, along with other private parties, have proper standing to assert a claim in federal court nationwide to enforce § 1461.Like many risk-oriented issues raised in our post-Dobbs world, these warning letters pose novel legal questions. More than 650 cases have cited to § 1461 since the first published opinion in the 1870s. Yet, we are aware of no case that has sought to couple the concept of abortion and the federal racketeering statute. The dearth of guidance leads practitioners (healthcare and law practitioners, alike) to many significant questions and considerations:Even if using the mail to facilitate abortions may be considered “racketeering activity” under the definition set forth in RICO, that definition does not itself create liability. RICO criminalizes, and by extension creates civil penalties, only against certain patterns of racketeering activity enumerated in the RICO statute. 18 U.S.C. §1962 (a)-(d). The warning letter

Under this predictable and easy-to-apply rule, the extraterritorial reach of criminal RICO liability simply piggybacks on the extraterritoriality jurisprudence that courts continue to develop around the predicate statutes underlying a RICO violation. The Court applied an entirely different test to RICO’s private right of action, explaining that the remedy, found in 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c), is available only to a plaintiff “injured in his business or property” within the United States. Plaintiffs who have been injured abroad – such as the European Community in its suit against RJR Nabisco – therefore have no private civil remedy under RICO.

On June22, 2023, a 6-3 Opinion issued in Yegiazaryanv. Smagin, No.22-381, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a plaintiff—whether located in the United States or abroad—may use the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (“RICO”) to enforce a foreign arbitral award in the United States, provided that the plaintiff can demonstrate that it suffered a “domestic injury” in the United States. Known more frequently for criminal prosecutions, RICO also provides civil litigants a powerful tool to remedy injury to business or property caused by a “pattern of racketeering activity” perpetrated by an “enterprise” of at least two distinct persons or entities. See 18 U.S.C. §§1961–1968. Prevailing plaintiffs under RICO are statutorily entitled to recover “threefold the damages” actually sustained—known as treble damages—and reasonable attorneys’ fees. 18 U.S.C. §1964(c).Before last week’s Opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court had limited a private party’s ability to pursue a RICO suit based on extraterritorial conduct. In RJR Nabisco, Inc.v. European Community, 579 U.S. 325, 346 (2016), the Supreme Court concluded that RICO violations under 18 U.S.C. §1962 may be based on foreign predicate acts where the statutes underlying those acts apply extraterritorially, but that the private right of action under 18 U.S.C. §1964(c) permits an extraterritorial civil RICO suit only where the plaintiff suffered a “domestic injury to business or property” (i.e., an injury in the United States).A conflict arose among the circuit courts, however, as to what exactly constitutes a “domestic injury” for purposes of civil RICO. Some U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeal examined the analysis based on a totality-of-the-circumstances, fact-based inquiry; other Circuits, by contrast, had adopted a rigid, bright-line rule that looked at the plaintiff’s residence. See Slip op. at 2. Resolv

avajo Nation case, with Justice Gorsuch joining Justice Sotomayor along with Justice Kagan. Justice Jackson concurred with the majority opinion of the Court, which affirmed a judgment of the Fourth Circuit and reversed a judgment of the Ninth Circuit.The Roberts/Kavanaugh alliance that we saw last week in the voting rights case again was present in yesterday's decision inYegiazaryan v. Smagin, in which, along with Justice Barrett, they joined Justice Sotomayor, who wrote the Court’s majority opinion, which also was joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented in whole or part.The decision itself is an important one in its expansion of a plaintiff’s right to bring a civil suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Respondent Smagin had filed a civil suit under RICO, which provides a private right of action to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions. 18 U. S. C. §1964(c). He alleged that the petitioner and others had worked together to frustrate Smagin’s collection on a California judgment (confirming a foreign arbitration award) through a pattern of wire fraud and other RICO predicate racketeering acts, including witness tampering and obstruction of justice. The majority held that a plaintiff sufficiently alleges a domestic injury, albeit to intangible property (a court judgment) for purposes of §1964(c) when the circumstances surrounding the injury indicate that it arose in the United States. Here, a great deal of the racketeering conduct occurred outside of the United States, but the effects of the vast majority of the injurious acts, directed at frustrating a California judgment, were manifested in the United States. Thus, looking to context, the majority sees no problem posed by any presumption against extraterritoriality or international comity. The dissenters argue that an injury to intangible property does not qualify as a “domestic injury” un

n Ryan, et al., the well water, ground water and soil in the Westminster, Mass., region harbored PFAS concentrations that “significantly surpassed” the benchmarks set by the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection. The three corporate defendants—who are involved in the production of paper, fertilizer and various other products—are alleged to be the source of the contamination. Upon de novo review, the Court adopted the lower court’s report and recommendations regarding the RICO claims against Seaman Paper Company of Massachusetts, Inc., Otter Farm, Inc., and Massachusetts Natural Fertilizer Company, Inc., (MassNatural). (Plaintiff’s RICO claims against Defendants Greif, Inc., Caraustar Industries, Inc., and the Newark Group, Inc., were dismissed because they were deemed to not cross the plausibility threshold.) In denying the Motion to Dismiss, the Court held that the RICO statute provides a civil cause of action to those harmed by the activities alleged in the complaint (18 U.S.C. § 1964(c)). Specifically, the complaint alleged that Seaman Paper operated a paper mill since the 1940s and has a history of using PFAS in the production of its paper products. In 2002, Seaman Paper acquired a plot of land, incorporated Otter Farm Inc., and conveyed the acquired land to Otter Farm Inc. Otter Farm then leased this land to MassNatural to use as a composting facility. MassNatural composts various materials, including paper fiber, and sells its compost, usually in the form of soil products, to the public. MassNatural has allegedly accepted waste material from Seaman Paper without testing it and fabricated its own compliance procedures to state authorities.According to the complaint, the alleged RICO enterprise took the form of an arrangement that allowed Seaman Paper a site to dump contaminated byproducts from its paper mill and avoid paying for expensive hazardous waste transporters or for proper disposal. Otter Farm, by providing a 100-year lease at below-market rent, had the lev

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (SDNY) reached the same conclusion, that an ICSID tribunal constituted under the Italy-Panama BIT did not qualify as a “foreign or international tribunal.” The latter case is now being appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit (which handles appeals from federal district courts in New York, Connecticut and Vermont).Federal district court decisions such as these are not binding precedent for other courts, though they may be persuasive. The Second Circuit decision, which is expected sometime in 2024, likely will clarify the law in this area for matters brought in that circuit’s lower courts. It remains to be seen how and whether other U.S. appellate courts will address this matter.US RICO Statute Is Potentially Available Where Parties Conspire To Frustrate Arbitral Award EnforcementThe U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed in Yegiazaryan v. Smagin, that the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1964 — which prohibits certain kinds of repetitive criminal conduct and provides civil remedies against those responsible for such conduct — is potentially available where U.S.-based parties illegally conspire to use improper means to frustrate enforcement of valid arbitral award.The underlying dispute in this case involved a Russian national, Vitaly Smagin, who was awarded $84 million in a London-based arbitration conducted under the rules of the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA). The award was rendered against another Russian national, Ashot Yegiazaryan, for the misappropriation of their joint real estate investment.In 2014, Smagin commenced proceedings in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (C.D. Cal.), which covers the greater Los Angeles area where Yegiazaryan was then living, to enforce the LCIA award. In Smagin v. Yegiazaryan, the district court granted the confirmation motion and entered the LCIA award as a judgment of the court. However, Y

a hard no: Claims under California’s notorious Unfair Competition Law are not assignable. Moreover, the plaintiffs’ attempts to show assignability of other states’ laws were either “suspect” or non-existent. Id. at *17-*18.On RICO, the district judge noted that every court to consider the issue has ruled that RICO claims are assignable. But it remains an open question in the Ninth Circuit. In Silvers v. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc., 402 F.3d 881 (9th Cir. 2005), the Ninth Circuit held that certain copyright claims were not assignable because the statute creating the right to sue limited the claim to the person who owned the copyright when the alleged infringement occurred. Id. at *14-*16. The defendant in MSP Recovery argued that RICO similarly created a private right of action and similarly limited the claim to persons “injured in [their] business or property by reason of a statutory violation.” It follows that RICO claims should similarly be unassignable. Id. at *16-*17 (citing 18 U.S.C. § 1964(c)).The district court found “some force” in that argument, but eventually decided that the plaintiffs’ pleadings were deficient for other reasons (see below). The court admonished the parties that “if a new motion to dismiss is filed, the parties should more thoroughly address the assignability of RICO claims.” Id. at 17.Second, even assuming that the plaintiffs were bringing assignable claims, they did not sufficiently plead them. A party invoking federal jurisdiction bears the burden of establishing standing. Although an assignee generally has standing to assert the injury in fact suffered by the assignor, “the Court must guard the standing requirement carefully in the assignment context.” Id. at *21. As a result, “Plaintiffs must plead facts . . . support a plausible inference (1) the ultimate assignors suffered an injury in fact, and (2) the assignors’ claim arising from the injury was validly assigned to Plaintiffs.” Id. at *22.These plaintiffs came up short. Most glaringly, the pl

ld obtain fraudulent judgments. Smagin contended that the purpose of these tactics was to hide Yegiazaryan’s assets from creditors, including Smagin himself. Id. at 3.In 2016, Smagin allegedly learned of Yegiazaryan’s scheme to conceal funds, and he moved for summary judgment in the California District Court to enforce the First Award. Id. The court granted Smagin’s motion, awarded him $92 million (“California Judgment”), and ordered Yegiazaryan and his accomplices to stop impeding Smagin’s attempts to collect the award. Id. Yegiazaryan failed to comply with these orders, even submitting a forged doctor’s note to the District Court, and the Court held him in contempt. Id.In 2020, Sagin filed a civil RICO action in the Central District of California against Yegiazaryan, CMB Monaco, and others. Id. at 4 n.1. Notably, “RICO provides a private right of action to ‘[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of’ RICO’s substantive provisions.” Id. at 4 (quoting 18 U. S. C. §1964(c)). Smagin alleged that the defendants, led by Yegiazaryan, impeded Smagin’s collection of the California Judgment “through a pattern of wire fraud and other RICO predicate racketeering acts, including witness tampering and obstruction of justice.” Id.Yegiazaryan moved to dismiss Smagin’s RICO claims, based on the Court’s ruling in RJR Nabisco, Inc. v. European Community, 579 U. S. 325 (2006), arguing that Smagin failed to allege a domestic injury because he lives in Russia. The District Court dismissed the claim. The Ninth Circuit reversed and the Supreme Court granted certiorari. Id. at 4-5.RJR Nabisco, Circuit Split, and Majority DecisionThe Court explained that the “domestic-injury” requirement for private civil RICO suits “stems from” its decision in RJR Nabisco. In RJR Nabisco, the Court was tasked with deciding whether RICO can apply when the acts and injuries at issue occurred beyond the United States border. Id. at 5-6 (some citations omitted) (citing RJR Nabisco, Inc., 579 U.