When the U.S. Supreme Court considered whether corporations could be held liable for human rights abuses under the Alien Tort Statute, O’Melveny & Myers’ Jonathan Hacker had a different issue in mind. The statute, he argued in a cert petition filed in a separate case on behalf of his client Rio Tinto Group, didn’t even apply when the atrocities occurred in other countries. He repeated the argument in an amicus brief filed in a separate case, Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co. "We had argued the broader issue, and we thought it was the kind of issue the court would be interested in as a way to limit the ATS," Hacker said.
The court took notice, asking for supplemental briefs in Kiobel and then adopting Hacker’s argument in its April 17 ruling. "I wouldn’t claim personal credit for it," Hacker said, "but we were definitely a part of the momentum addressing the extraterritorial issue."
