YEGIAZARYAN, AKA EGIAZARYAN v. SMAGIN ET AL.
No. 22-381
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
June 22, 2023
599 U.S. ___ (2023)
OCTOBER TERM, 2022
Syllabus
NOTE: Where it is feasible, a syllabus (headnote) will be released, as is being done in connection with this case, at the time the opinion is issued. The syllabus constitutes no part of the opinion of the Court but has been prepared by the Reporter of Decisions for the convenience of the reader. See United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co., 200 U. S. 321, 337.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Syllabus
YEGIAZARYAN, AKA EGIAZARYAN v. SMAGIN ET AL.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
No. 22-381. Argued April 25, 2023—Decided June 22, 2023*
Respondent Vitaly Smagin won a multimillion dollar arbitration award in 2014 against petitioner Ashot Yegiazaryan stemming from the misappropriation of investment funds in a joint real estate venture in Moscow. Because Yegiazaryan has lived in California since 2010, Smagin, who lives in Russia, filed suit to confirm and enforce the award in the Central District of California pursuant to the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards. The District Court initially froze Yegiazaryan’s California assets beforе finally entering judgment against him. The District Court also entered several postjudgment orders barring Yegiazaryan and those acting at his direction from preventing collection on the judgment. While the action was ongoing, Yegiazaryan himself was awarded a multimillion dollar arbitration award in an unrelated matter and sought to avoid the District Court’s asset freeze by concealing the funds, which were ultimately transferred to a bank account with petitioner CMB Monaco.
In 2020, Smagin filed this civil suit under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which provides a private right of action to “[a]ny person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions.
Held: A plaintiff alleges a domestic injury for purposes of
(a) The “domestic-injury” requirement for private civil RICO suits stems from RJR Nabisco, a case in which the Court was asked whether RICO applies extraterritorially. To answer the question, the Court applied the presumption against extraterritoriality, a canon of construction that provides “[a]bsent clearly expressed congressional intent to the contrary, federal laws will be construed to have only domestic application.” 579 U. S., at 335. Guided by concerns of international comity and the reasonable discernment of congressional intent, the Court distilled the presumption against extraterritoriality into two steps. The first asks “whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” Id., at 337. If the answer is “yes,” the presumption is rebutted, and the test ends. If the answer is “no,” the inquiry proceeds and step two asks whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute, which is assessed “by looking to the statute’s ‘focus.’” Ibid. Applying this framework, the Court assessed the extraterritoriality of RICO’s private right of action,
(b) The parties advance competing approaches to the domestic-injury inquiry. Petitioners urge a bright-line rule that locates a plaintiff’s injury at the plaintiff’s rеsidence. They argue that because a private RICO action remedies only economic injuries and a plaintiff necessarily suffers that injury at its residence where the economic injury is felt, any cognizable
(c) The Court agrees with Smagin and the Ninth Circuit that the domestic-injury inquiry is context specific and turns largely on the facts alleged in the complaint. Specifically, cоurts should look to the circumstances surrounding the alleged injury to assess whether it arose in the United States. Here, that means looking to the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it, and the injurious aims and effects of that activity.
The context-specific approach is most consistent with RJR Nabisco. The Court’s statements in RJR Nabisco that the domestic-injury requirement “does not mean that foreign plaintiffs may not sue under RICO,” 579 U. S., at 353, n. 12, and that “application of [the] rule in any given case will not always be self-evident,” id., at 354, point toward a case-specific inquiry that considers the particular facts surrounding the alleged injury. That approach also better reflects the requirement’s origin in step two, which assesses whether there is a domestic application of a statute by looking to the statute’s focus. RJR Nabisco implied that
(d) The circumstances surrounding Smagin’s injury make clear that the injury arose in the United States. Smagin’s alleged injury is his inability to collect his judgment. Much of the alleged racketeering activity that caused that injury occurred in the United States. And while some of Yegiazaryan’s scheme to avoid collection occurred abroad, the scheme was directed toward frustrating the California judgment. Further, the injurious effects of the racketeering activity largely manifested in California. Smagin obtained a judgment in California where Yegiazaryan lives, and the rights provided by that judgment exist only in Califоrnia. The alleged RICO scheme thwarted those rights, thereby undercutting the orders of the California District Court and Smagin’s efforts to collect on Yegiazaryan’s assets in California. Under a contextual approach, Smagin’s allegations suffice to state a domestic injury. Pp. 10–11.
(e) Petitioners argue that a contextual approach is inconsistent with certain common-law principles governing “the situs” of injuries to intangible property. Specifically, petitioners point to the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws—under which fraud is typically deemed felt
37 F. 4th 562, affirmed and remanded.
SOTOMAYOR, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which ROBERTS, C. J., and KAGAN, KAVANAUGH, BARRETT, and JACKSON, JJ., joined. ALITO, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which THOMAS, J., joined, and in which GORSUCH, J., joined as to Part I.
* Together with No. 22–383, CMB Monaco, fka Compagnie Monegasque de Banque v. Smagin et al., also on certiorari to the same court.
NOTICE: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the United States Reports. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Supreme Court of the United States, Washington, D. C. 20543, pio@supremecourt.gov, of any typographical or other formal errors.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Nos. 22–381 and 22–383
ASHOT YEGIAZARYAN, AKA ASHOT EGIAZARYAN, PETITIONER
22–381 v. VITALY IVANOVICH SMAGIN, ET AL.
CMB MONACO, FKA COMPAGNIE MONEGASQUE DE BANQUE, PETITIONER
22–383 v. VITALY IVANOVICH SMAGIN, ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 22, 2023]
JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR delivered the opinion of the Court.
Respondent Vitaly Smagin holds a multimillion dollar California judgment against petitioner Ashot Yegiazaryan, who lives in California. Smagin, who resides in Russia, filed suit in the Central District of California alleging that Yegiazaryan, with the assistance of petitioner CMB Monaco (formerly Compagnie Monégasque de Banque), engaged in a pattern of criminal activity, predominantly in and targeted at California, to prevent him from collecting on his California judgment, in violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO),
I
A
The essential facts as alleged by Smagin are as follows. From 2003 to 2009, Yegiazaryan committed fraud against Smagin, stealing his shares in a joint real estate venture in Moscow. To avoid a Russian criminal indictment for that fraud, Yegiazaryan fled to a mansion in Beverly Hills in 2010, where he has lived ever since. In 2014, Smagin, who lives in Russia, won an arbitration award in London against Yegiazaryan for the misappropriation of his real estate investment (London Award). Yegiazaryan refused to pay that award, which is over $84 million.
Seeking to collect, Smagin filed an enforcement action in the Central District of California to confirm and enforce the London Award under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, June 10, 1958, 21 U. S. T. 2517, T. I. A. S. No. 6997, as implemented by
In his application for injunctive relief, Smagin informed the District Court that Yegiazaryan had been granted a substantial arbitration award in an unrelated proceeding involving Yegiazaryan and yet another Russian businessman, Suleymon Kerimov (Kerimov Award). At the time, no funds had yet been paid to Yegiazaryan in satisfaction of that award, but Smagin was concerned that when they were paid, Yegiazaryan would take steps to transfer the money out of Smagin’s reach.
Smagin’s concerns were justified. In May 2015, Yegiazaryan received a $198 million settlement in satisfaction of the Kerimov Award. To avoid the District Court’s
Around the same time, Yegiazaryan was hiding his assets in the United States through a system of “shell companies” owned by family members. Id., at 61a. This included a Nevada company, which was owned by his brother and created “for the purpose of sheltering [Yegiazaryan’s] U. S. assets from his creditors,” including Smagin. Id., at 44a.
Smagin did not learn about the $198 million settlement, Yegiazaryan’s efforts to hide it, or the U. S. shell companies until February 2016, when Smagin was granted leave to intervene in Yegiazaryan’s California divorce proceedings. The next month, the California District Court in the London Award enforcement action granted Smagin’s motion for summary judgment on his petition for confirmation of the Award and entered judgment against Yegiazaryan for $92 million, including interest. The court also issued several postjudgment orders barring Yegiazaryan and those acting at his direction from preventing collection on the judgment.
For failing to comply with those orders, the District Court subsequently found Yegiazaryan in contempt of court. To avoid having to comply with the contempt order, however, Yegiazaryan falsely claimed he was too ill, and submitted a forged doctor’s note to the District Court. When Smagin notified Yegiazaryan that he would bе seeking to depose the doctor in question, who resides in California, Yegiazaryan used “intimidation, threats, or corrupt persuasion,” id., at 82a, to get the doctor to avoid service of the subpoena.
At issue here is a civil RICO suit that Smagin brought in 2020 based on the allegations just described. RICO provides a private right of action to “[any person injured in his business or property by reason of a violation of” RICO’s substantive provisions.
The District Court dismissed the complaint on the ground that Smagin had “fail[ed] to adequately plead a domestic injury,” id., at 31a, as required by this Court’s decision in RJR Nabisco. See 579 U. S., at 346 (“A private RICO plaintiff therefore must allege and prove a domestic injury to its business or property”). The District Court “place[d] great weight on the fact that Smagin is a resident and citizen of
The Ninth Circuit reversed. It rejected petitioners’ invitation to follow the domestic-injury approach of the Seventh Circuit, “which has adopted a rigid, residency-based test for domestic injuries involving intangible property,” such as a judgment. 37 F. 4th 562, 568, 570 (2022) (citing Armada (Sing.) PTE Ltd. v. Amcol Int’l Corp., 885 F. 3d 1090 (2018)). Under the Seventh Circuit’s rule, which locates an injury to intangible property at the plaintiff’s residence, Smagin could not allege a domestic injury because he resides in Russia. See Armada, 885 F. 3d, at 1094. The Ninth Circuit instead adopted a “context-specific” approach to the domestic-injury inquiry, which it found consistent with the approaches of the Second and Third Circuits. 37 F. 4th, at 568–570; see Bascuñán v. Elsaca, 874 F. 3d 806, 809 (CA2 2017); Humphrey v. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, 905 F. 3d 694, 696 (CA3 2018). Applying that approach, the Ninth Circuit concluded that Smagin had pleaded a domestic injury because he had alleged that his efforts to execute on a California judgment in California against a California resident were foiled by a pattern of racketeering aсtivity that largely “occurred in, or was targeted at, California” and was “designed to subvert” enforcement of the judgment in California. 37 F. 4th, at 567–568.
This Court granted certiorari to resolve the Circuit split. 598 U. S. ___ (2023). Because a context-specific inquiry is most consistent with this Court’s decision in RJR Nabisco, and because the context here makes clear Smagin has alleged a domestic injury, the Court affirms.
II
A
The “domestic-injury” requirement for private civil RICO suits stems from this Court’s decision in RJR Nabisco.
Dual rationales support the presumption against extraterritoriality. On the one hand, it reflects concerns of international comity insofar as it “‘serves to protect against unintended clashes between our laws and those of other nations which could result in international discord.’” Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U. S. 108, 115 (2013) (quoting EEOC v. Arabian American Oil Co., 499 U. S. 244, 248 (1991)). On the other hand, the presumption is informed by “the commonsense notion that Congress generally legislates with domestic concerns in mind.” Smith v. United States, 507 U. S. 197, 204, n. 5 (1993). In fact, consistent application of the presumption “preserv[es] a stable background against which Congress can legislate with predictable effects.” Morrison, 561 U. S., at 261.
RJR Nabisco distilled the presumption against extraterritoriality into two steps. The first asks “whether the statute gives a clear, affirmative indication that it applies extraterritorially.” 579 U. S., at 337. If the answer is “yes,” then the presumption is rebutted, obviating any need to proceed to step two. If the presumption is not rebutted, however, then step two asks whether the case involves a domestic application of the statute, which is assessed “by looking to the statute’s ‘focus.’” Ibid.2
In announcing this “domestic-injury” requirement, the Court did not have occasion to explain what constitutes a “domestic injury,” because the plaintiffs in RJR Nabisco had stipulated that they were not seeking redress for domestic injuries. Id., at 354. The question now before the Court is whether Smagin has alleged a domestic injury.
B
The parties advance competing approaches to the domestic injury inquiry. Petitioners urge the Court to adopt a bright-line rule, akin to the Seventh Circuit’s, that locates a plaintiff’s injury at the plaintiff’s residence. Petitioners advance two different versions of this rule.
have the discretion to begin at step two ‘in appropriate cases.’” WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., 585 U. S. ___, ___ (2018) (slip op., at 5) (citing RJR Nabisco, 579 U. S., at 338, n. 5).
Smagin, in contrast, defends a contextual approach that considers all case-specific facts bearing on where the injury “arises,” not just where it is “felt.” Brief for Respondent 9. In the context of this suit, Smagin argues that he has stated a domestic injury because he has alleged that he was injured in his ability to enforce a California judgment, against a California resident, through racketeering acts that were largely “designed and carried out in California” and were “targeted at California.” Id., at 3, 21.
C
The Court agrees with Smagin and the Ninth Circuit that “determining whether a plaintiff has alleged a domestic injury [for purposes of RICO] is a context-specific inquiry that turns largely on the particular facts alleged in a complaint.” 37 F. 4th, at 570. Specifically, courts should look to the circumstances surrounding the alleged injury to assess whether it arose in the United States. In this suit, that means looking to the nature of the alleged injury, the racketeering activity that directly caused it,3 and the injurious
This approach to the domestic-injury requirement is most consistent with RJR Nabisco. There, the Court clarified that its domestic-injury requirement “does not mean that foreign plaintiffs may not sue under RICO.” 579 U. S., at 353, n. 12. Similarly, the Court explained that “application of [the domestic-injury] rule in any given case will not always be self-evident, as disputes may arise as to whether a particular alleged injury is ‘foreign’ or ‘domestic.’” Id., at 354. These remarks point toward a case-specific inquiry that considers the particular facts surrounding the alleged injury. Petitioners’ bright-line rule, in contrast, dispenses with any such subtlety. It makes the location of the plaintiff’s residence determinative, thus barring all foreign plaintiffs, exactly as RJR Nabisco said it was not doing.
A contextual approach to the domestic-injury requirement also better reflects the requirement’s origin in step two of the extraterritoriality framework, which assesses whether there is a domestic application of a statute by looking to the statute’s focus. RJR Nabisco implied that the focus of
Anza v. Ideal Steel Supply Corp., 547 U. S. 451, 457–458 (2006) (describing the proximate causation requirement as a “directness requiremen[t]”).
Because of the contextual nature of the inquiry, no set of factors can capture the relevant considerations for all cases. RICO covers a wide range of predicate acts and is notoriously “expansive” in scope. Id., at 498–499. Thus, depending on the allegations, what is relevant in one case to assessing where the injury arose may not be pertinent in another. While a bright-line rule would no doubt be easier to apply, fealty to the statute’s focus requires a more nuanced approach.
D
This suit illustrates well why the domestic-injury inquiry must account for the facts of the case, rather than rely on a residency-based rule. While it may be true, in some sense, that Smagin has felt his economic injury in Russia, focusing solely on that fact would miss central features of the alleged injury. Zooming out, the circumstances surrounding Smagin’s injury make clear it arose in the United States.
Smagin alleges that he “has been injured in his inability to collect [his] massive judgment.” App. 38a. Much of the alleged racketeering activity that caused the injury ocсurred in the United States. Yegiazaryan took domestic actions to avoid collection, including allegedly creating U. S. shell companies to hide his U. S. assets, submitting a forged doctor’s note to a California District Court, and intimidating a U. S.-based witness. It is true that other components of the scheme occurred abroad. As Smagin alleges, however, even those “wrongful acts and plans were devised, initiated, and carried out . . . through acts and communications initiated in and directed towards Los Angeles County, California,” with the “central purpose of frustrating enforcement of [the] California judgment.” Id., at 45a–46a.
In sum, Smagin’s interests in his California judgment against Yegiazaryan, a California resident, were directly injured by racketeering activity either taken in California or directed from California, with the aim and effect of subverting Smagin’s rights to execute on that judgment in California. On the Court’s contextual approach, those allegations suffice to state a domestic injury in this suit.
III
Petitioners argue that a contextual approach is inconsistent with certain common-law principles, which instead favor their bright-line rule. According to petitioners, because Smagin has alleged an “economic injury” or an “injury in intangible property,” Brief in Opposition 15–16, courts should look to common-law principles governing “the situs” of such injuries, when determining whether those injuries are foreign or domestic. Specifically, as to economic injuries, petitioners point to the Restatement (First) of Conflict of Laws §377 (1934), from which they discern the principle that “a fraud plaintiff suffers an economic loss at the plaintiff’s domicile.” Brief for Petitioners 36; see also Sack v. Low, 478 F. 2d 360, 366 (CA2 1973) (Under the First Restatement, “loss from fraud is deemed to be suffered where
Petitioners fall short, however, when explaining the relevance of these principles. They do not clearly explain why choice-of-law principles are germane here, let alone why the First Restatement dictates those principles.4 Meanwhile, it is far from clear that petitioners’ gloss on the principle of mobilia sequuntur personam was as well established or as wide sweeping as petitioners take it to be, in light of the many twists and turns in the doctrine across a range of contexts. See A. Simowitz, Siting Intangibles, 48 N. Y. U. J. Int’l L. & Pol. 259, 270–292 (2015). In short, at the time of RICO’s enactment, both principles were hardly “settled . . . at common law.” Beck v. Prupis, 529 U. S. 494, 500 (2000).
The core prоblem with petitioners’ approach is that it is unmoored from the presumption against extraterritoriality. While legal fictions regarding the situs of economic injuries and intangible property have their justifications in other areas of law, those justifications do not necessarily translate to the presumption against extraterritoriality, with its distinctive concerns for comity and discerning congressional meaning.
Finally, petitioners, as well as the dissent, post, at 5 (opinion of ALITO, J.), argue that a contextual approach is unworkable because it does not рrovide a bright-line rule. Reply Brief 17–18. An approach is not unworkable, however, merely because it directs courts to consider the case-specific circumstances surrounding an injury when assessing where it arises. While “the ease with which [petitioners’] bright-line rule can be applied gives it some surface appeal,” Humphrey, 905 F. 3d, at 709, a look beneath the surface quickly reveals that the test is inconsistent with RJR Nabisco, the presumption against extraterritoriality, and the thrust of
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A plaintiff has alleged a domestic injury for purposes of
It is so ordered.
YEGIAZARYAN, AKA EGIAZARYAN v. SMAGIN ET AL.
No. 22-381
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
June 22, 2023
ALITO, J., dissenting
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Nos. 22–381 and 22–383
ASHOT YEGIAZARYAN, AKA ASHOT EGIAZARYAN, PETITIONER
22–381 v. VITALY IVANOVICH SMAGIN, ET AL.
CMB MONACO, FKA COMPAGNIE MONEGASQUE DE BANQUE, PETITIONER
22–383 v. VITALY IVANOVICH SMAGIN, ET AL.
ON WRITS OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT
[June 22, 2023]
JUSTICE ALITO, with whom JUSTICE THOMAS joins, and with whom JUSTICE GORSUCH joins as to Part I, dissenting.
These are the first cases in which we have been required to decide when injury to intangible property that a civil plaintiff attributes to a violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) qualifies as a “domestic injury” and may therefore provide the basis for recovery under
I
We granted certiorari “to resolve [a] Circuit split” between, on the one hand, the Third and Ninth Circuits, which embrace a totality-based inquiry like the one the Court adopts here, and, on the other hand, the Seventh Circuit, which has held that RICO injuries to intangible property are sited at the plaintiff’s residence. Ante, at 5; compare Humphrey v. GlaxoSmithKline PLC, 905 F. 3d 694, 706–707 (CA3 2018), and 37 F. 4th 562, 567–568 (CA9 2022) (case below), with Armada (Sing.) PTE Ltd. v. Amcol Int’l Corp., 885 F. 3d 1090, 1094–1095 (CA7 2018).* The Seventh Circuit’s decision, however, contains little analysis and simply declares that “[i]t is well understood that a party experiences or sustains injuries to its intangible property at its residеnce.” Id., at 1094; see also Czyzewski v. Jevic Holding Corp., 580 U. S. 451, 471 (2017) (THOMAS, J., dissenting) (referring to a dearth of “reasoned opinions . . . from the courts of appeals” regarding “a novel and important question”). The Third and Ninth Circuits, for their parts, did not coalesce around any common set of factors to guide the civil RICO domestic-injury inquiry for intangible-property claims. See Humphrey, 905 F. 3d, at 706–707; 37 F. 4th, at 567–568. And no court of appeals has even broached the possibility that different categorical rules might be available for different types of intangible property (e.g., perhaps there could be a rule that injuries to trademark rights should be sited in the country that provided the trademark). “[W]e would greatly benefit from the views of
*The Second Circuit has adopted a bright-line rule that RICO injuries to tangible property are sited at the location of the property. Bascuñán v. Elsaca, 874 F. 3d 806, 818–824 (2017). The Second Circuit’s holding is not impliсated in this split, nor did that court offer any analysis of intangible property relevant to these cases.
Bringing clarity to this area of the law is not an easy task, and I must conclude that the Court falls short. It cites petitioners’ domestic racketeering conduct and the California rights conferred by the California judgment Smagin has obtained to enforce his London arbitral award, but it gives no indication of the relative import of each of these factors. Ante, at 10–11. And while the Court appears to envision a long list of factors that might be relevant to this inquiry, see ante, at 10, it mentions none other than these two. Nor does it say anything about the circumstances that would call for consideration of additional factors, when such factors might outweigh one or both of the ones it mentions, or what these other factors might bе.
Of course, under the majority’s all-factors-considered approach, many other features of this very suit could be relevant, such as the history and location of the underlying dispute, where any relevant business relationships were formed, Smagin’s residence, and the existence of the London arbitral award. Are future courts to infer that these matters have no import? It is difficult to come to any other conclusion given that the Court pays them no heed in undertaking what is ostensibly an examination of all relevant “contex[t].” Ante, at 8–10. But it is equally difficult to see why they are irrelevant (especially in light of the Court’s unexplored acknowledgment that “in some sense, . . . Smagin has felt his economic injury in Russia,” ante, at 10), or what room the Court is leaving for additional factors to be identified if none of these counts. And because the Cоurt sets aside the factors that would favor petitioners, it also provides no guidance on how to weigh competing considerations that do not all point toward the same result.
One might additionally think that the nature of the intangible property itself could be relevant under the majority’s approach, such as whether the property is a debt, a
Even with respect to the two factors it focuses on, the Court engenders confusion. It offers no hint which of the two might be more important (should they point in different directions), whether either or both are necessary, or whether either is sufficient. And the Court acknowledges that there was also substantial foreign conduct in these cases, but writes that off because it was “initiated in and directed towards” the United States. Ante, at 10. Once more, I am unsure of the origin or scope of this rule. If domestic conduct is “initiated in” a foreign nation, does that make it foreign? What exactly does it mean to direct conduct “towards” the United States? All in all, were I a lower-court judge, I would struggle to apply today’s decision to any set of facts other than the precise combination present here. In my view, it is not worth our deciding a case when we provoke so many more questions than we provide answers. That is especially so now that the lower courts must additionally decide whether and how today’s cryptic decision binds them, rather than continuing to think through unencumbered when intangible-property injuries are the basis of a domestic application of civil RICO.
II
It is not just that we are contributing little by deciding
Additionally, we have placed a premium on workability in our extraterritorial-application cases. The Court acknowledges that a bright-line rule would be preferable here, but essentially shrugs: RICO is too “nuanced” for that. Ante, at 10, 13. Our cases do not let us off the hook so easily. Compare Morrison v. National Australia Bank Ltd., 561 U. S. 247, 258–259 (2010) (“There is no more damning indictment of the [Second Circuit’s] ‘conduct’ and ‘effects’ tests than the Second Circuit’s own declaration that ‘the presence or absence of any single factor which was considered significant in other cases is not necessarily dispositive in future cases’”), with ante, at 10 (“[N]o set of factors can capture the relevant considerations for all cases”).
Perhaps there is a reason why RICO justifies these departures from our customary rules, but I have no confidence in reaching that conclusion now (let alone sub silentio). RJR Nabisco was relatively recent, and there have been
*
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The only rule of lаw that the Court announces today is that there is no rule, and despite offering such minimal guidance regarding how to site a RICO injury, the Court nonetheless manages to sow confusion regarding our broader law of extraterritoriality. Respectfully, the most we could contribute to this issue at this juncture is to stay away from it. I would dismiss the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted.