Litigation Under the Antiterrorism Act: 2025 Year in Review

Executive Summary

• What’s new: 2025 brought significant developments in and affecting civil litigation under the ATA, including rulings addressing key jurisdictional and substantive issues and U.S. executive action designating certain South and Central American cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
• Why it matters: Multinational, non-U.S. corporations — particularly those that operate in high-risk or unstable regions — continue to face nuanced and expanding risks of potential civil liability arising from alleged connections to international terrorist activity.
• What to do next: Corporations with significant non-U.S. touchpoints should consider taking steps to assess, address and mitigate potential risk exposure under the ATA, while also continuing to monitor further developments likely to come in 2026.

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Recent years have featured an increasing number of civil actions against corporations asserting claims under the federal Antiterrorism Act of 1990 (ATA),¹ as amended by the 2016 Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA). This past year was no different. Several notable lawsuits were filed against corporations in 2025, and courts issued significant rulings throughout the year outlining the scope of liability that corporate defendants can face under the ATA.

The year ahead will likely bring further development concerning the reach of the ATA. Notably, this year might also feature a new wave of actions targeting business activities in Central and South America following the recent designations of certain international drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations (FTOs).

I. New Lawsuits

Overview. The ATA plaintiffs’ bar filed about 30 new lawsuits in 2025. Approximately a dozen of those actions asserted claims against corporate defendants in a range of industries, including banking and finance, telecommunication, and media and broadcasting. Notably, corporations outside the financial sector were named in a greater proportion of lawsuits than in prior years, potentially reflecting plaintiffs’ increased willingness to test the boundaries of secondary liability under the ATA by asserting claims based on the provision of goods, technology or direct monetary payments, in addition to financial services.

Consistent with historical trends, the majority of these ATA cases were filed in federal courts in the District of Columbia and New York. Many actions initiated in 2025 asserted claims stemming from the terrorist attacks perpetrated by Hamas in Israel in October 2023.

Notable Actions Initiated in 2025

• Wilson v. Ericsson Inc. (D.D.C.).² Victims of terrorist attacks in Europe and Afghanistan (or their families) filed suit against telecommunications company Ericsson and certain subsidiaries, alleging that Ericsson violated the ATA through the provision of protection payments, technology and devices to terrorist groups between 2004 and 2022. The allegations draw heavily from another pending action against Ericsson,³ highlighting the risk that multiple ATA lawsuits may stem from the same alleged conduct. Moreover, many of the plaintiffs in this case are pursuing ATA claims against other corporations in a separate suit to recover from the same injuries,⁴ reflecting how one event can spur litigation against a range of independent corporate actors.
• Balva v. Binance Holdings Ltd. (D.N.D.).⁵ Victims of the October 2023 Hamas attacks (or their families) filed suit against prominent cryptocurrency exchange Binance and certain individual defendants, alleging that Binance aided and abetted the attacks through the facilitation of cryptocurrency transactions associated with Hamas and other terrorist groups. Additional actions in other jurisdictions have been brought against Binance asserting similar claims.⁶ These lawsuits demonstrate increasing efforts to impose civil liability on participants in the cryptocurrency industry based on FTOs’ alleged use of cryptocurrency.

II. Notable Legal Developments

Given the relative novelty of ATA suits against corporations, courts continue to grapple with fundamental questions concerning the reach of the statute. The ATA’s exclusive focus on acts of international terrorism perpetrated outside the United States has spawned important questions concerning the reach of the statute to the activities of non-U.S. corporations occurring primarily (or even entirely) outside the U.S. At the same time, courts continue to weigh the necessary nexus between a corporate defendant’s alleged conduct and relevant acts of international terrorism, along with setting the bounds of the applicable statute of limitations.

Personal jurisdiction. Many corporations named as defendants in ATA actions are non-U.S. entities. Accordingly, an argument that the court lacks personal jurisdiction over a non-U.S. corporate defendant has typically been one of the strongest bases for dismissal of an ATA action prior to discovery. But a June 2025 U.S. Supreme Court ruling might threaten that defense.

In Fuld v. Palestine Liberation Organization,⁷ the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a 2019 amendment to the ATA that codifies federal personal jurisdiction over the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization in ATA actions under certain circumstances.⁸ In so doing, the Supreme Court concluded that the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause — which applies in cases asserting claims under federal law in federal court — “permit[ted] a more flexible jurisdictional inquiry commensurate with the Federal Government’s broader sovereign authority” than the long-standing “minimum contacts” standard applicable to claims brought in state court or under state law.⁹ The Supreme Court declined to adopt a standard for assessing the outer bounds of permissible personal jurisdiction under the Fifth Amendment, holding only that the statutory amendment at issue sufficiently “tie[d] federal jurisdiction” to conduct closely implicating “important foreign policy concerns.” ¹⁰

Although Fuld evaluated a narrow provision of the ATA, its impact on ATA litigation as a whole could be profound. Lower courts have acknowledged the lack of clarity regarding Fuld’s extension of federal jurisdiction over foreign defendants more broadly.¹¹ This uncertainty is keenly felt in ATA actions. Some plaintiffs have taken the position that Fuld supports the exercise of personal jurisdiction over non-U.S. corporate defendants in all ATA cases because (they argue) the ATA and JASTA implicate important foreign policy concerns. Defendants have responded by arguing that Fuld was a narrow decision that addresses only the constitutionality of a particular federal statute tailored to particular defendants and thus has no impact on ATA suits more broadly.¹²

The more expansive reading of Fuld — which one federal district court recently adopted to conclude that it possessed personal jurisdiction over non-U.S. corporations in an ATA action, notwithstanding those corporations’ relatively weak contacts with the U.S.¹³ — could support the exercise of personal jurisdiction over defendants in effectively all ATA cases, thereby removing a critical defense to civil liability. This area appears ripe for development in the near term.

Aiding-and-abetting liability. Courts impose a relatively high bar for ATA plaintiffs to successfully allege “primary” ATA claims against a corporation (i.e., direct liability for an injury to a U.S. national caused by an act of international terrorism). However, they continued to wrestle this past year with the proper scope of aiding-and-abetting liability under the ATA — in particular, with the extent to which a defendant’s alleged assistance to a foreign terrorist organization must connect to the specific attack that injured the plaintiff. Courts have generally noted that alleged affirmative assistance more readily supports claims for aiding and abetting as compared to a supposed failure to act. But beyond that rough distinction, important questions remain.

In a seminal 2023 opinion, Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh,¹⁴ the Supreme Court explained that aiding-and-abetting claims under the ATA must sufficiently allege the defendant’s “knowing” and “substantial” assistance through “conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation” in the specific terrorist attack that harmed the plaintiff.¹⁵ In contrast, mere allegations of a defendant’s assistance to terrorist organizations can only support liability where the assistance was sufficiently “pervasive” and “systemic” so as to “aid and abet” a broader, more general category of misconduct.¹⁶ Although Twitter appeared to heighten the pleading standard for such claims, the Supreme Court eschewed any “inflexible codes” and made clear that aiding and abetting liability “does not always demand a strict nexus between the alleged assistance and the terrorist act.”¹⁷

In June 2025, the Supreme Court issued its first substantive application of Twitter’s aiding-and-abetting standard. In Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos,¹⁸ a non-ATA case involving a federal law protecting firearms manufacturers from federal lawsuits, the Supreme Court rejected Mexico’s claims that certain manufacturers aided and abetted the unlawful downstream sale of guns by intermediary dealers to Mexican drug cartels. Reiterating Twitter’s observation that “aiding and abetting usually requires misfeasance rather than nonfeasance,” the Supreme Court concluded that Mexico’s generalized allegations were too far removed from the underlying conduct, failing to establish that the defendants allegedly “wishe[d] to bring about” the unlawful acts or provided truly systemic general assistance to the arms dealers.¹⁹ As the Supreme Court put it, “Mexico’s plausible allegations are of ‘indifferen[ce],’ rather than assistance.”²⁰

In 2025, lower courts continued to apply Twitter to define the outer bounds of aiding-and-abetting liability. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, whose decisions bind federal district courts in New York, Connecticut and Vermont, revisited its jurisprudence in light of Twitter in a July 2025 ruling. The Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of an action seeking to hold financial institutions liable under the ATA for terrorist attacks perpetrated through the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in Afghanistan between 2011 and 2016.²¹ Among other things, the court found that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that one of the financial institutions was “generally aware” of its indirect role in terrorist activity given its provision of banking services to fertilizer companies that supplied materials used by terrorist groups to construct IEDs.²² But the court concluded that any connection between the defendants’ provision of such services and the attacks at issue was “tenuous,” and that the complaint lacked allegations that the bank “sought” to assist the attacks.²³

Although some courts have stressed the need for a close connection between the assistance alleged and specific injury-causing attacks, others have taken a more permissive approach and allowed aiding-and-abetting claims against corporate defendants to proceed to discovery. For example, such claims were permitted to go forward where, in the court’s view, plaintiffs sufficiently alleged (i) that the defendants were “generally aware” of their indirect role in terrorist activity given publicly available information or government sanctions; and (ii) that the defendants took affirmative, unusual, or intentional action (e.g., by knowingly disregarding U.S. law).²⁴

Statute of limitations. In September 2025, in Moses v. BNP Paribas, S.A., a federal district court evaluated the interplay between the ATA’s 10-year limitations provision and JASTA’s retroactivity provision authorizing secondary liability claims stemming from “any relevant injury that occurred on or after September 11, 2001.”²⁵ In that case, even though the plaintiffs’ aiding-and-abetting claims arose out of injuries sustained more than 10 years before the case was filed, the court concluded that those claims were timely because the limitations period began to run only upon the enactment of JASTA in September 2016.²⁶

The overall issue remains unsettled, including because defendants in pending actions continue to assert that JASTA’s retroactivity provision is unconstitutional.²⁷ However, under the interpretation embraced by the Moses court, the statute of limitations would not bar plaintiffs’ ATA secondary liability claims until September 28, 2026, so long as those claims stemmed from injuries sustained on or after September 11, 2001.

Regardless of the outcome of this particular legal dispute, the ATA’s statute of limitations remains relatively lengthy. Potential plaintiffs thus can take years to develop their allegations — including through open-records requests and other public-source investigation — and file lawsuits based on conduct stretching back a decade or more.

Related non-ATA litigation risks. Finally, developments in 2025 underscored that the risk profile for corporations doing business in high-risk jurisdictions is not confined to ATA cases. Putative plaintiffs may also pursue legal action (and similarly seek significant monetary relief) under state or foreign law theories.²⁸

III. Forecast for 2026

Key cases. Dozens of ATA cases remain pending, many of which are primed for substantive determinations in 2026 that will likely have far-reaching effects, including the following:

• Atchley v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd. (D.C. Cir.).²⁹ Atchley involves ATA claims against medical supply and manufacturing companies arising out of those companies’ alleged provision of payments and medical supplies to the Iraqi Ministry of Health (an entity that the plaintiffs allege was controlled by terrorist organizations) for business reasons. Although the D.C. Circuit originally vacated the district court’s dismissal of the action and allowed the case to proceed, the Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded the case to the D.C. Circuit for further consideration in light of Twitter. The D.C. Circuit’s forthcoming decision will likely be its first meaningful interpretation of Twitter — and one that will bind federal district courts in the District of Columbia.
• Schmitz v. Ericsson (D.D.C.).³⁰ One of the first “protection payment” cases, Schmitz was brought by U.S. servicemembers wounded (and families of servicemembers killed) in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria between 2005 and 2021. The plaintiffs allege that Ericsson and certain subsidiaries made payments through intermediaries to terrorist groups to minimize threats to Ericsson’s business operations in Iraq. Ericsson’s motion to dismiss, which is fully briefed and ripe for decision, implicates a number of the key issues highlighted above.

Designation of drug cartels as FTOs. The Trump administration’s designation of several international drug cartels as FTOs in early 2025 creates additional risks for companies operating in Central and South America and could significantly expand the scope of ATA liability.³¹ The coming year could feature the first wave of actions asserting ATA claims stemming from acts of international drug cartels (assuming such acts meet the definition of “acts of international terrorism”).

Cryptocurrency. Recent actions implicating cryptocurrency and decentralized finance are noteworthy given the increasing social and regulatory acceptance of cryptocurrency and related finance sectors worldwide (as well as the potential for international terrorist organizations to use these avenues for illicit means). Civil litigation under the ATA involving those sectors could continue to grow in 2026.

Statute of limitations. As JASTA’s 10-year anniversary approaches in September 2026, the impact and effect of its 10-year statute of limitations could command greater focus, especially given that follow-on actions arising out of international terrorist attacks often materialize many years after the attacks themselves transpired. The coming year could see the last filings of actions based on pre-2016 terrorist attacks in an effort to avoid preclusion under the statute of limitations.

Personal jurisdiction. As mentioned above, courts will continue to assess the impact of Fuld on ATA cases, providing greater clarity on the extent to which foreign corporations are able to challenge personal jurisdiction.

IV. Conclusion

The risk landscape for potential ATA liability is expanding, particularly for multinational, non-U.S. corporations, including financial institutions, technology companies and cryptocurrency companies. Corporate entities should consider the following steps to mitigate potential risk:

• Integrate risks under the ATA (and other potentially applicable laws) in regular risk assessments related to sanctions, anti-money laundering (AML), countering the financing of terrorism (CFT) and anti-bribery and corruption (ABC). Compliance programs and controls should subsequently be tailored to the identified risks; these measures should also include response planning to address potential issues.
• Assess risk exposure to recently designated FTOs, including Mexican and Venezuelan drug cartels newly designated in 2025, by mapping supply chains for potential FTO exposure, enhancing know your customer (KYC) and due diligence processes, and updating monitoring systems and internal controls.
• For non-U.S. entities, analyze and consider U.S. jurisdictional links as well as governance and organizational structures to mitigate potential risks.
• Ensure that the board of directors and senior leadership are kept updated on emerging risks, compliance gaps and compliance program enhancements.

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1 18 U.S.C. §§ 2331 to 2339D

2 Wilson v. Ericsson Inc., No. 1:25-cv-03926-CKK (D.D.C. filed Nov. 12, 2025).

3 See Schmitz v. Ericsson Inc., No. 1:22-cv-02317-CKK (D.D.C. filed Aug. 5, 2022).

4 See Wilson v. Lafarge S.A., No. 1:25-cv-01975-NGG-PK (E.D.N.Y. filed Apr. 9, 2025).

5 Balva v. Binance Holdings Ltd., No. 3:25-cv-00266-PDW-ARS (D.N.D. filed Nov. 24, 2025).

6 See also Raanan v. Binance Holdings Ltd., No. 1:24-cv-00697-JGK-BCM (S.D.N.Y. filed Jan. 31, 2024); Newman v. BAM Trading Servs., Inc., No. 2:24-cv-00134-ECM-CWB (M.D. Ala. filed Feb. 26, 2024); Troell v. Binance Holdings Ltd., No. 1:24-cv-07136-JAV (S.D.N.Y. filed Sept. 20, 2024).

7 606 U.S. 1 (2025)

8 See 18 U.S.C. § 2334(e).

9 Fuld, 606 U.S. at 16.

10 Id. at 18.

11 See, e.g., Weinstock v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 798 F. Supp. 3d 838, 860–61 (N.D. Ill. 2025), appeal filed sub nom. Weinstock v. R.J. O’Brien Ltd., No. 25-2413 (7th Cir. Aug. 14, 2025).

12 See, e.g., Pl.’s Notice of Suppl. Authority, Schmitz v. Ericsson Inc., No. 1:22-cv-02317-CKK (D.D.C. June 27, 2025), ECF No. 89; Defs.’ Resp. to Pl.’s June 27, 2025 Notice of Suppl. Authority, Schmitz v. Ericsson Inc., No. 1:22-cv-02317-CKK (D.D.C. July 9, 2025), ECF No. 90; Defs.’ Mem. of P. & A. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss Pls.’ Am. Compls., Davis v. MTN Irancell Telecomms. Servs. Co., No. 1:22-cv-00829-RDM (D.D.C. Sept. 5, 2025), ECF No. 105-1.

13 Finan v. Lafarge S.A., No. 22-CV-7831 (NGG) (PK), 2025 WL 2504317, at *16–17 (E.D.N.Y. Aug. 29, 2025) (denying motion to dismiss in part),writ of mandamus requested sub nom. In re Lafarge S.A., No. 25-3212 (2d Cir. filed Dec. 19, 2025).

14 598 U.S. 471.

15 Id. at 493, 497. In Twitter, the Supreme Court applied the common-law standard set out in Halberstam v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472 (D.C. Cir. 1983), to govern such claims under the ATA: (1) the party aided by the defendant must perform a wrongful act that causes an injury; (2) the defendant must have general awareness of its role in illegal or tortious activity at the time of the assistance; and (3) the defendant must “knowingly and substantially assist” the violation. Twitter, 598 U.S. at 486 (citing Halberstam, 705 F.2d at 477–78).

16 Twitter, 598 U.S. at 501–02.

17 Id. at 497.

18 605 U.S. 280 (2025).

19 Id. at 292, 294 (citation omitted).

20 Id. at 297 (citation omitted).

21 See Ashley v. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft, 144 F.4th 420 (2d Cir. 2025).

22 Id. at 439–43.

23 Id. at 440–41. The court cautioned, however, that “[s]imilar banking services in a different context may lead to a different result,” noting as an example that the plaintiffs’ claim would be “much stronger . . . if they plausibly alleged that [defendant] was treating the Companies differently than it treated its other clients.” Id. at 443.

24 See, e.g., Raanan v. Binance Holdings Ltd., No. 24-cv-697 (JGK), 2025 WL 605594, at *19–24 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 25, 2025); Moses v. BNP Paribas, S.A., No. 24-CV-4938 (JGLC), 2025 WL 2780803, at *14–15 (S.D.N.Y. Sept. 30, 2025).

25 See Moses, 2025 WL 2780803, at *8–9; see also 18 U.S.C. § 2335(a); Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, Pub. L. No. 114-222 § 7, 130 Stat. 852, 855 (2016).

26 See Moses, 2025 WL 2780803, at *7–9.

27 See, e.g., Defs.’ Notice of Constitutional Challenge, Davis v. MTN Irancell Telecomms. Servs. Co., No. 1:22-cv-00829-RDM (D.D.C. Sept. 5, 2025), ECF No. 106.

28 See, e.g., Judgment, Kashef v. BNP Paribas S.A., No. 1:16-cv-03228-AKH-JW (S.D.N.Y. Oct. 22, 2025), ECF No. 1006 (jury award issued in favor of three plaintiffs in non-ATA case against foreign bank arising out of its alleged provision of financial services to the Sudanese Government).

29 Atchley v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd., No. 1:17-cv-02136-RJL (D.D.C. Oct. 17, 2017), on appeal, No. 20-7077 (D.C. Cir. Aug. 21, 2020).

30 See Schmitz, supra note 3.

31 See our March 25, 2025, client alert “Understanding and Mitigating Legal and Compliance Risks Relating to Cartels and Transnational Criminal Organization”; U.S. State Department press release, “Designation of International Cartels” (Feb. 20, 2025); The White House, “Designating Cartels And Other Organizations As Foreign Terrorist Organizations And Specially Designated Global Terrorists” (Jan. 20, 2025).

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