Americans Who Had Property Seized In Cuba Can Now Sue Cuba's Business Partners

MIAMI (CBSMiami/AP) - Two American owners of confiscated property in Cuba are among the first to file lawsuits against European and American companies doing business on their former properties.

The legal action being taken by Mickael Behn and Javier Garcia-Bengochea comes after the Trump Administration announced that they will permanently allow Title III of the Helms-Burton Act to go into effect.

Under terms of the law, Americans and Cubans who later become Americans can sue almost any company deemed to be "trafficking" in property confiscated by Cuba's government. Every president since the law's passage has suspended Title III because of objections from U.S. allies doing business in Cuba and because of the potential effect on future negotiated settlements between the U.S. and Cuba.

The law contains exceptions for residential properties, properties worth less than $50,000 and properties linked to travel to Cuba deemed legal under U.S. law. Its activation Thursday could nonetheless generate dozens, even hundreds of lawsuits, along with trade fights between the U.S. on one side and countries including Spain, France, and Britain on the other.

Behn and Bengochea are heirs of families that owned ports in Havana and Santiago de Cuba now being used to dock cruise ships that began traveling to Cuba in 2016 under President Barack Obama's detente with the island.

Behn's grandfather, American William C. Behn, was president of the company Havana Docks, which owned three docks in the capital that were confiscated in 1960. Mickael Behn, a television executive who lives between Miami and London, says he is suing for up to three times the current value of the docks, as permitted under the law.

Bengochea, a neurosurgeon who lives in northeast Florida, owns 80 percent of the shares of the confiscated Cuban company La Marítima, which operated the port of Santiago de Cuba. He is suing for up to $20 million.

"We want to get justice," said Bob Martinez, the lawyer for both men. "This was a robbery and what we're trying to get is compensation for the illegal use of these properties."

Lawyers and potential plaintiffs say they expect only a trickle of lawsuits at first due to the expense and complexity of filing litigation under a law that is being put into effect for the first time and touches on issues of international trade and sovereignty.

Suing is also expensive, with initial filing fees of more than $6,500 a case. There is also the difficulty and expense of proving ownership with old Cuban documents.

The activation of Title III has provoked protests from the European Union, Canada, and Cuba, which fears its already lagging levels of foreign investment could be permanently crippled. At a Cuban government-organized May Day parade Wednesday in Havana, marchers carried signs and chanted slogans denouncing the Helms-Burton law.

The State Department has certified some 6,000 claims worth approximately $8 billion at current values. There are an additional 200,000 uncertified claims, many by Cuban-Americans, whose value could reach into the tens of billions of dollars.

(© Copyright 2019 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)