The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld key parts of a US court judgment of about $1.2 billion against Antrix Corp., the commercial arm of the Indian space agency, in the long-running Devas Multimedia dispute. The court also rejected Antrix’s arguments that the case should be heard in India and that US courts lacked jurisdiction over the company. However, the ruling does not finally settle whether India’s decision to set aside the original arbitration award will affect enforcement of the US judgment. That question has now gone back to the district court for a decision.
How events unfolded
Interest later increased the amount significantly. When the US District Court for the Western District of Washington confirmed the award in 2020, it entered a judgment of about $1.293 billion against Antrix. The US Supreme Court has also described the judgment as about $1.29 billion.
What happens next in the Devas-Antrix case?
So, the two figures refer to different stages of the case: $562.5 million was the original damages award, while about $1.2 billion is the US court judgment after interest. That issue had become important after the US Supreme Court’s 2025 ruling in the same dispute. Indian courts set aside the arbitration award, with the process becoming final after the Supreme Court of India declined review in October 2023.
The Ninth Circuit has now upheld the confirmation of the arbitration award. This means the judgment itself has not been thrown out by the appeals court. The court also rejected Antrix’s challenge to US jurisdiction. The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provides an exception for certain arbitration-related cases involving foreign state entities. The ruling found that the exception applied here and that exercising personal jurisdiction over Antrix was proper. The Supreme Court held that personal jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act exists when an immunity exception applies and the foreign entity has been properly served. It sent the case back to the Ninth Circuit to consider Antrix’s remaining arguments.
Antrix argued that the US courts should therefore no longer enforce the award.
