US court upholds $565m award for Indian startup, blow to ISRO’s Antrix Corp

“As relevant in this case, the FSIA’s (Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act) arbitration exception withdraws immunity from Antrix because this case concerns an award governed by a treaty in force for the United States,” the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled.

The court also dismissed Antrix Corp’s argument that the case should have been decided in India rather than the US, noting that foreign courts cannot order the seizure of assets in the US to enforce arbitration awards.

Can US courts step in?

The court, however, granted some relief to Antrix, ruling that the district court had erred in allowing Mauritius-based shareholders of the now-liquidated Devas Multimedia to also seize Antrix properties in the US while confirming the September 15, 2015 ICC award.

“Antrix is wholly owned by India, and India is a signatory to the New York Convention, which provides for enforcement in the courts of any country in which the treaty is in force,” the ninth circuit judge Lucy H Koh said in her opinion on the dispute.

“Moreover, Antrix agreed that an arbitral award arising out of the agreement could be ‘entered in any court of competent jurisdiction’. It thus could not ‘have come as much of a surprise’ to Antrix that Antrix would be ‘haled into US courts’,” the ninth circuit court said.

The US appeals court has, however, referred back to the district court the question of whether US courts can decide on the ICC compensation award when Indian courts had set it aside. The Supreme Court had on October 6, 2023, rejected Devas Multimedia’s pleas against Delhi High Court orders dated August 29, 2022, and March 17, 2023.

When a ruling in Antrix’s favour was challenged

On August 1, 2023, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit had ruled in favour of Antrix Corp, setting aside compensation confirmation. The court said the firm, as an alter ego of India, must have some business presence in the US to be subject to US courts’ jurisdiction under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act.

The order was expected to end Devas Multimedia’s efforts to enforce the compensation award after it was confirmed by the federal court in Washington on October 27, 2020.

However, Devas Multimedia challenged the order, following which the US Supreme Court ruled on June 5, 2025, that the appeals court had erred in holding that a firm must have some business presence in the US for it to be liable to be sued in US courts. The US Supreme Court ruled that US courts have jurisdiction over foreign entities “when an immunity exception applies and service is proper”.

“Antrix’s alternative arguments—that the Fifth Amendment itself requires a showing of minimum contacts, that the claims at issue do not fall within the FSIA’s arbitration exception, and that the suit should be dismissed under forum non conveniens—were not addressed below by the Ninth Circuit. This Court declines to address them in the first instance,” the US SC said, referring the matter back to the appeals court.

Antrix had also argued that “there is no longer an award to enforce because the Delhi High Court—the court of competent jurisdiction to determine the award’s enforceability—set it aside, a decision affirmed by the Indian Supreme Court”.

What is the legal dispute?

The dispute between Bengaluru-based, foreign-funded Devas Multimedia and Antrix Corp dates back to a 2005 satellite deal. Under the failed agreement, Isro was to lease two communication satellites for 12 years at a cost of Rs 167 crore to Devas. The startup was to provide multimedia services to mobile platforms in India using the space band or S-band transponders on Isro’s GSAT 6 and 6A satellites, built at a cost of Rs 766 crore.

In February 2011, the UPA government annulled the Devas-Antrix satellite deal, citing the need to reserve space spectrum allocated for Devas’s services for security purposes. The deal, signed during its tenure, was cancelled after it was cited as a ‘sweetheart deal’ and flagged as an instance of corruption after the 2G telecom scam.

After the NDA government came to power in 2014, central agencies began investigating the deal even as the foreign investors in Devas Multimedia—the German telecom major Deutsche Telekom and three Mauritius investors—and Devas Multimedia itself approached various international tribunals seeking compensation for the failed deal.

Devas Multimedia was awarded $565.2 million by ICC on September 14, 2015; Deutsche Telekom was awarded $101 million by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in Geneva; and the Mauritius investors were awarded $111 million by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law.

The National Company Law Tribunal in India ordered the liquidation of Devas Multimedia on May 25, 2021, citing fraudulence in its creation. The Supreme Court upheld the order on January 17, 2022.