Tara J. Plochocki

On October 19, 2021, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted Guantánamo detainee Asadullah Haroon Gul’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, ruling that his detention is unlawful. The decision marks the first time a Guantánamo Bay detainee has won a habeas corpus petition in the last ten years.

The U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia recently denied a petition to recognize and enforce an international arbitration award against a government-owned airline on jurisdictional grounds.  The decision in UAB Skyroad Leasing Inc. v. OJSC Tajik Air, 20-cv-0763 (D.D.C. Jan. 26, 2021) illustrates the hurdles to enforcing an arbitral award against a foreign state-owned enterprise, even when that enterprise is engaged in pure commercial activities and controlled by the state. 

In the dying days of his administration, President Trump has moved to smash the civil service.  Through Executive Order 13957 (“EO 13957” or the “EO”), the President aims to carve out an entire new class of civil servants, sheering them from long-standing federal protections designed to create a professional, apolitical federal workforce.  Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss is investigating the scope of the Executive Order and possible remedies available to affected civil servants.

The Second Circuit held that 28 U.S.C. § 1782(a) cannot be used to support petitions for discovery for use in private foreign commercial arbitrations, settling an issue that has lingered unresolved in the circuit since 2004. The new decision, In re Guo, puts the Second Circuit squarely at odds with recent decisions issued by other circuit courts, raising the possibility that the Supreme Court will take up the issue next session to resolve the split. While Guo does not impact the ability of parties to foreign public arbitrations and litigations to take § 1782(a) discovery, for now at least, parties to private foreign arbitrations may have to look to more favorable circuits outside New York for relief.

The First Department Appellate Division in New York recently issued a ruling that will make the recognition of foreign country money judgments more difficult in New York. Kate Toomey and Tara Plochocki summarize its impact.

The United States complied with a federal court order and released a former Afghan militiaman from detention in Guantánamo Bay. Last year, Tara J. Plochocki, one of Mr. Haroon’s lawyers, described her client as “desperate to get home” to make sure his daughter gets an education. Ms. Plochocki credited State Department efforts “over the past two months” for arranging the transfer and said the decision in this case “shows that no one, not even the U.S. government, and not even in war, is above the law.”

The United States Supreme Court concluded in ZF Automotive US, Inc. v. Luxshare, Ltd. that federal district courts cannot order discovery for use in a private foreign arbitration via 18 U.S.C. § 1782—a statute that permits litigants to seek discovery in federal court for “use in a proceeding in a foreign or international tribunal.”  The unanimous decision narrows a useful discovery tool by prohibiting parties in or contemplating private, foreign arbitration from obtaining discovery through federal courts for use in that arbitration.

A federal judge has found that a former Afghan militant has been held unlawfully at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, the first time in 10 years that a detainee has won such a case against the U.S. government, his lawyers said.

A federal judge has ruled that the United States has no legal basis for holding an Afghan man at Guantánamo Bay.

A US federal court has ruled that a detainee at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre has been unlawfully kept there, several days after he was cleared to be transferred out of the military prison.

The US court granted the petition for a writ of habeas corpus for Asadullah Haroon Gul, who has been detained without charge by the US since 2007. The decision marks the first time in a decade a Guantanamo detainee's imprisonment has been ruled unlawful.

The founder and minority shareholder of Tocqueville Management Corp. sued his successor and six of the successor's relatives in Delaware's Chancery Court on Tuesday, saying he was "utterly betrayed" by the man he allegedly groomed to take over the wealth management firm.

Bilal Abdul Kareem, an American journalist based in opposition-held northwestern Syria, is petitioning the US Supreme Court to review his case accusing the government of placing him on a "kill list", and alleging that he was consequently targeted five times by US strikes in 2016.

The petition is the latest development in a years-long legal battle between the United States government and Abdul Kareem, and calls on the Supreme Court to decide whether a lower court erred in its dismissal of his case.

"What our case is really about is: can the United States kill a US citizen without due process, on the basis that its desire to execute its own citizens is a state secret?" Tara Plochocki, legal counsel for Abdul Kareem, told Middle East Eye.

Gul “is a prisoner of war — a war that has been over for many years,” attorney Tara Plochocki argued Monday in court for his legal team, comprising people from human rights group Reprieve and the Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss law firm. “If the rule of law means anything, [he] must be released.”

A U.S. Department of Justice lawyer argued Monday that the United States can kill its own citizens without judicial review when litigation would reveal state secrets.

"What the government seeks to do in this case represents a radical expansion of the concept of a 'state secret'," explained Tara Plochocki, a partner at Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss PLLC, representing Abdul Kareem. "The privilege has never been invoked to permit the government to bypass the Constitution in favour of summary execution, and we hope that the Court will not permit the government to do so here."

Kareem’s attorney, Tara Jordan Plochocki, argued the government was radically expanding sovereignty, domestically and abroad, allowed under state-secrets privilege. 

“Whether that’s in a parking lot in the United States or abroad in Syria, the government has claimed — for the first time ever in this case — that it has unfettered and unreviewable discretion to kill US citizens at will,” Plochocki said. 

“For the first time ever, a United States federal court ruled that the government may kill one of its citizens without providing him the information necessary to prove that he is being wrongly targeted and does not deserve to die,” attorney Tara J. Plochocki said.

Ms. Plochocki is quoted in the article as addressing the court saying, “We’re not asking for the court to revisit drone policy, we’re not taking a run at the drone program,” she says. “Plaintiffs [just] want an opportunity to be meaningfully heard, just as… if they were designated for economic sanctions or told that they couldn’t board a flight to Cleveland.”

“We are gratified that the court recognized that, as a U.S. citizen, Mr. Kareem has the right to be heard in court before his government can decide to kill him, and we look forward to these proceedings continuing to a final resolution,” said Tara J. Plochocki, partner with the Lewis Baach Kaufmann Middlemiss law firm.

Plaintiffs attorney Tara J. Plochocki likened the case instead to challenges from people who say they were wrongly placed on U.S. no-fly lists or hit with economic sanctions. The men were also represented by Reprieve, a human rights group based in London and New York City.

Plochocki argued that when Awlaki’s father tried to sue on his son’s behalf while he was still alive, another federal judge in Washington in 2010 ruled that nothing prevented the designated terrorist Awlaki from peacefully presenting himself at a U.S. embassy and asserting his rights in court.

“We’re taking [the judge] up on that offer,” Plochocki said, such as by asserting their innocence in a sworn affidavit, court filing, administrative hearing or other means.

Tara Plochocki of the firm Lewis Baach noted that her clients do not seek review of the legality of the drone program, and are only seeking narrow due-process relief afforded by the Administrative Procedure Act.

“Plaintiffs want an opportunity to be meaningfully heard,” she said.

Woodsford Litigation Funding, one of the leading global third party funders, has announced a funding facility agreement with Lewis Baach which ensures the firm can offer clients an expedited, one-stop arrangement for the financing of high value litigation and arbitration.

Lewis Baach is pleased to announce the release of “Getting the Deal Through:  Litigation Funding 2017,” which offers the first comprehensive overview of the laws and regulations governing litigation funding on a country-by-country basis. Lewis Baach attorneys David Liston, Alex Patchen and Tara Plochocki authored the chapter on the United States.