The CIMEX S.A. corporation and Unión Cuba Petroleo (Cuba Oil Union) will defend themselves in a US federal court against a lawsuit filed by the multinational ExxonMobil, pursuant to Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, it was reported here.
According to the Cubadebate news website, the two firms ‘have taken formal steps, through their lawyers, to defend themselves in a federal court in the District of Columbia, in the United States.’
It will not be the first time, nor is it unusual, that Cuban companies defend their interests in the US judicial system, the website noted.
In this regard, Cubadebate pointed out that since 1960 Cuban firms have done so on more than 40 occasions, and have secured favorable rulings in several cases.
The press release added that ExxonMobil oil company was the first major corporation to file a lawsuit against Cuban companies in a US court under Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, which came into force on May 2, 2019.
‘The Cuban State has repeated on several occasions that the Helms-Burton Act is inapplicable on national territory and that no legal effects have been recognized, nor will be recognized; on the contrary, it will promote as many actions as necessary to prevent its enforcement, as established in the Cuban Dignity and Sovereignty Reaffirmation Act of 1996,’ Cubadebate added.
Soffiyah Elijah, US lawyer and member of “Venceremos Brigade” in solidarity with Cuba affirmed that the Helms Burton Act, which internationalizes her country”s blockade against Cuba, is illegal and unconstitutional, as reported today in Granma newspaper.
The lawyer assured that three decades of legal practice allow her to assure, without a margin of doubt, that this legal monstrosity contradicts the United States Constitution.
She remarked that this law complicity protects criminal acts and aggression against the sovereignty of other countries, ‘something that will never be legal’ and one of its articles allows establishing legal cases against companies or businesspeople of sovereign nations, without taking into consideration Cuban law and that of their respective countries. She recalled that just as in Cuban legislation, there is legal protection in the United States for the national government to nationalize when it determines so, and that the private property of a U.S. citizen can be confiscated without financial compensation.
Helms Burton’s hypocrisy is such that it justifies acts of financial aggression against Cuba and allows private U.S. citizens, even those who have already been compensated, to file legal cases against Cuban institutions or foreign investors, she stressed.
Elijah is executive director of the New York-based Alliance of Families for Justice and a prestigious human rights advocate for Latino and Afro-descendant communities who are victims of the U.S. justice system.
