Wood Ex Rel. United States v. American Institute in Taiwan

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge TATEL.

TATEL, Circuit Judge:

In this case, we must determine whether the American Institute in Taiwan, a unique entity through which the United States performs consular services on Taiwan and conducts commercial, cultural, and other relations with the people on Taiwan, enjoys sovereign immunity from a qui tarn suit brought by the Institute’s former Managing Director. Agreeing with the district court that the Institute is immune, we affirm the dismissal of the complaint.

I

Following the triumph of Mao Zedong’s 1949 communist revolution, Chiang Kai-Shek,…