Protecting Americans from Russian Litigation Act of 2025

This section would give the Act the short title 'Protecting Americans from Russian Litigation Act of 2025.'

This section would state that it is the policy of the United States to, first, make sure United States persons are not put at a disadvantage for actions or omissions they take in order to comply with United States sanctions or export controls, and second, make sure that foreign persons, or people acting on a foreign person's behalf, cannot obtain compensation for any action related to United States persons who are trying in good faith to comply with their obligations under United States sanctions or export controls.

This section would add a new section 1660 to chapter 111 of title 28 of the United States Code, add a matching entry to that chapter's table of sections, and set out when the new rule applies to cases already in court. Under the new section 1660, no person, other than the United States government or someone acting on the United States government's behalf, could bring a civil action in a federal or state court to enforce a foreign judgment or a foreign arbitral award if either of two conditions is true: the underlying conduct or circumstances behind the claim came from actions taken to comply with United States sanctions that got in the way of performing a contract, or the court or tribunal that issued the judgment or award based its jurisdiction, in whole or in part, on the imposition of United States sanctions or export controls, or on a foreign law enacted in response to United States sanctions or export controls. If such an action is filed, any defendant could remove it to the appropriate United States district court, and that district court would be required to dismiss the action. The new section would also state that none of this limits four things: the authority of the President, anyone the President delegates authority to (including the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control), or any other United States officer or official, to bring an action or carry out a responsibility under any applicable state or federal law; any right, remedy, or cause of action already available under state or federal law, including chapter 97 of title 28, chapter 113B of title 18, and the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 and other laws applying sanctions on Iran or Syria, to a victim of international terrorism, torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage, or hostage taking, or to a family member of such a victim, where that victim is or was, at the time of the injury, a United States national, a member of the United States armed forces, a United States government employee, or someone performing a contract awarded by the United States government while acting within the scope of that person's employment; any right, remedy, or cause of action arising from a party's contractual rights, other than an action to enforce a foreign judgment or arbitral award as described above, where the parties had agreed to resolve all disputes by litigation in a United States state or federal court or by arbitration within the United States; or any other right, remedy, or cause of action available under state or federal law, other than an action to enforce a foreign judgment or arbitral award as described above, where the underlying conduct or circumstances behind the claim came from the imposition of United States sanctions or export controls. The new section would define 'United States sanctions' as any prohibition, restriction, or condition on transactions involving property in which a foreign country or its national has an interest, that the United States imposes to address threats to the country's national security, foreign policy, or economy, under section 203 of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act or under any other law, including laws relating to export controls. The term would not include duties imposed on the importation of goods. The new limitation in section 1660 would apply to civil actions that are pending on or after the date this Act becomes law, not only to actions filed afterward.