Yesterday the Supreme Court of the United States, with eight votes in favor and one against, has reopened the judicial dispute that contrasts the cruise groups Carnival Corporation, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings and MSC Cruises to the historic US company Havana Docks, founded in 1917 and manager of the Cuban port docks in Havana from 1928 until to 1960 when the business was confiscated by the government after the Castro's revolution. The latter has been taking action for some time legal law relating to the right to manage the docks of the port and the highest federal judicial body in the United States, referring to Title III of the "Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act" of 1996, which came into force in May 2019, considering that the use of the docks of the port by the cruise companies is sufficient to demonstrate that they have used "property confiscated by the Cuban government" and that Havana Docks is not required to prove that the companies operated on an area over which Havana Docks held a right concession (usufructuary concession that would have expired in 2004).

Between 2016 and 2019, the four cruise groups had brought almost one million passengers to the Cuban port and in 2019 Havana Docks had appealed to Title III of the so-called law Helms-Burton suing the four companies at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. The cruise companies had claimed that they did not be responsible because the right to grant Havana Docks would have expired in 2004 even in the absence of confiscation. The District Court had rejected this argument and had sentence against all four sentences sentencing them to payment of more than $100 million each to Havana Docks. Subsequently, a panel of judges of the Court of Appeal of the Eleventh Circuit, not unanimously, had overturned the judgment arguing that a defendant is responsible for trafficking in confiscated assets only if its actions interfere with the applicant's right to property in the absence of confiscation and, since the Havana Docks concession would have expired before 2016, the conduct alleged against the companies from 2016 to 2019 did not constitute an economic enjoyment of ownership confiscated.

The Supreme Court rejected this interpretation, stating that the Court of Appeals had wrongly requested Havana Docks to demonstrate that the four companies had precisely carried out economic activities on confiscated assets instead of rather used confiscated assets on which Havana Docks he had a right.