On August 12, 2026, the 9th Circuit joined the D.C. Circuit in ruling that the doctrine of forum non conveniens does not apply to an action to confirm a foreign arbitral award under the New York Convention. A three-judge panel unanimously rejected the argument by award debtor, the Indian state-owned company Antrix Corp. Ltd., that the doctrine of forum non conveniens required litigation in India. This is the latest turn in a years-long saga.
Devas Multimedia Private Ltd., the award creditor, initiated arbitration before the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) in 2011 against Antrix to enforce a contract to deliver communications services throughout India via a hybrid satellite-terrestrial communications system. Devas prevailed in the arbitration and was awarded $562.5 million in damages in 2015, which has now reportedly ballooned to over $2 billion with accrued interest. Adding a further twist, the Supreme Court of India set aside the award in October 2023 on the basis of fraud in the underlying transaction between Devas and Antrix.
This is the second time the case has reached the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit initially refused to enforce the award on personal jurisdiction grounds. The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned that decision in 2025 holding that personal jurisdiction is established under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) if an exception to immunity applies and the defendant has been properly served. This ruling confirmed that the FSIA does not require courts to conduct the so-called “minimum contacts” test to determine whether a nonresident defendant has a certain level of contacts with the United States to support personal jurisdiction.
In this second round, the 9th Circuit addressed Antrix’s argument that the district court should have dismissed the case under the doctrine of forum non conveniens in favor of litigation in India based on the forum’s strong connection to the parties and the underlying agreement, as well as the subsequent setting aside of the arbitral award by the Supreme Court of India.
The 9th Circuit panel ruled that the doctrine does not apply to an action to confirm a foreign arbitral award under the New York Convention. Moreover, the opinion states that “[e]ven apart from the New York Convention’s text and purpose, the structure of an enforcement action under the Convention forecloses forum non conveniens on its own terms” since a proceeding to confirm a foreign award is intended to reach the award debtor’s commercial assets located in the United States, which is a form of relief that no foreign court can offer. The panel noted that its opinion accords with that of the D.C. Circuit, which has held in Tatneft v. Ukraine, 21 F.4th 829, 840 (D.C. Cir. 2021) (quoting LLC SPC Stileks v. Republic of Moldova, 985 F.3d 871, 876 n.1 (D.C. Cir. 2021)) “that forum non conveniens is not available in proceedings to confirm a foreign arbitral award because only U.S. courts can attach foreign commercial assets found within the United States.”
Besides ruling on the forum non conveniens issue, the panel also rejected further arguments by Antrix regarding subject-matter and personal jurisdiction under the FSIA and remanded the case to the district court to address the effect of the Indian set-aside proceedings on enforcement. The 9th Circuit holding comports with decisions in other U.S. courts narrowing the bases to contest enforcement of foreign arbitral awards resulting from agreements to engage in international arbitration, particularly those of foreign sovereigns opposing jurisdiction on FSIA grounds. If you have any questions about the decision, enforcing foreign arbitral awards, or international arbitration in general, please do not hesitate to reach out to Dustin Appel or Jennifer Morrison Ersin.