The U.S. Law Regime of Sovereign Immunity and the Sovereign Wealth Funds

This article is concerned with the applicability of sovereign immunity to the so-called sovereign wealth funds (“SWFs”) within the U.S. legal system. While sovereign immunity has existed for at least two centuries, SWFs and the types of investment activities they conduct on behalf of their parent foreign states are a rather recent phenomenon. As a result, the issue of the applicability of the rules on sovereign immunity to the SWFs poses novel legal challenges and difficulties. In a nutshell, this article is intended to answer the following questions: Are SWFs entitled to invoke sovereign immunity before U.S. courts? If so, what is the U.S. law regime of sovereign immunity applicable to the case of the SWFs