Michael Zernicek v. Brown & Root, Inc., Petroleos Mexicanos

ALVIN B. RUBIN, Circuit Judge:

Under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA), is a foreign-government agency immune from suit in the United States if a United States citizen sustains personal injuries in that sovereign’s territory while working for a United States corporation that had contracted to conduct mineral exploration activity there? The district court correctly held that the Act shields the foreign-government agency.

I

Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), an agency of the government of Mexico, was conducting mineral exploration and production operations in the Bay of Campeche, a part of the…