Summary

CHILDS, Circuit Judge: When Russia invaded Crimea in 2014, it did not arrive at an empty field. Ukrainian companies were already there, embedded in the daily life of the peninsula.

Their businesses were lawful, visible, and stationary. Within months, Russian and Crimean forces seized facilities, transferred operations, and refused to provide compensation.

In the cases before us, two sets of Ukrainian companies were affected ("Companies"). One is JSC DTEK Krymenergo ("DTEK"), an electricity distributor, and the other is a group of Ukrainian companies ("Investors") that owned and operated petrol stations across Crimea and lost those businesses.

The Companies turned to a bilateral investment treaty between Russia and Ukraine--the Agreement Between the Government of the Russian Federation and the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine on the Encouragement and Mutual Protection of Investments ("Investment Treaty"). The Investment Treaty promised protection against uncompensated expropriation and offered arbitration to resolve disputes arising in connection with investments. The Companies, under that agreement, sued Russia in arbitral tribunals. Those arbitral tribunals concluded that Russia had breached the Investment Treaty and awarded damages to the Companies. The Companies thereafter sought to enforce these arbitral awards in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.

In those district court proceedings, Russia acknowledged that the arbitrations occurred and that the tribunals issued the awards. It disputed, however, the authority of the district court to enforce them. In Russia's view, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act ("FSIA") did not afford jurisdiction because the Investment Treaty never covered investments in Crimea, the resulting awards are political rather than commercial, and the lack of minimum contacts with the United States bars the exercise of personal jurisdiction.

The district court rejected those arguments. It held in both cases that jurisdiction exists under the FSIA's arbitration exception and that personal jurisdiction follows once an FSIA exception applies and service is proper. Russia now brings these interlocutory appeals under the collateral order doctrine.

Our task is limited. We do not decide the sovereignty of Crimea. We do not revisit the merits of the arbitral awards.

Instead, we decide whether the district court possessed jurisdiction to hear these enforcement petitions under the FSIA, and whether Russia--once the district court concluded that the FSIA's arbitration exception applied and service was proper-- may nonetheless invoke the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause to defeat personal jurisdiction.

Having reviewed the record and the parties' briefs, we affirm the district court's judgments.

OGEL:

• Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:22-cv-00983)
• Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:23-cv-03330)

TDM:

• Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:22-cv-00983)
• Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia (No. 1:23-cv-03330)