A pro se attorney sued his former clients, Argentina’s economic ministry and a reinsurance company owned by the Argentine government, for malicious prosecution based on the Argentine government’s criminal prosecution of the attorney for allegedly exorbitant fees. In the malicious prosecution action, the Southern District of New York decided it could not exercise subject matter jurisdiction over the defendants because none of the exceptions to sovereign immunity provided by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act applied. Although the court acknowledged that defendants’ retention of the attorney in connection with commercial matters qualified as commercial activity, it determined that the commercial activity exception did not apply because the activity in question was the government initiated criminal prosecution. The court also concluded that defendants’ prior consent to arbitrate the issue of alleged overbilling by the plaintiff was not an “unmistakable or unambiguous waiver” of immunity from the separate tort action of malicious prosecution. Moreira v. Ministerio de Economia y Produccion de la Republica Argentina, Case No. 10 Civ. 266 (LTS)(KNF) (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 7, 2012).
This post written by Abigail Kortz.
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