Joshua Atchley v. Astrazeneca Uk Limited

United States Court of Appeals
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT
Argued November 19, 2024 Decided January 23, 2026
No. 20-7077
J OSHUA ATCHLEY, ET AL.,
APPELLANTS
v.
ASTRAZENECA UK LIMITED, ET AL.,
APPELLEES
On Remand from the Supreme Court of the United States
Joshua D. Branson argued the cause for appellants. With
him on the supplemental briefs were David C. Frederick,
Andrew E. Goldsmith, and Derek C. Reinbold.
Stephen I. Vladeck was on the supplemental brief for amici
curiae Law Professors in support of appellants.
Lisa S. Blatt argued the cause for appellees. With her on
the supplemental briefs were Kannon K. Shanmugam, Jeh C.
Johnson, William T. Marks, Christopher N. Manning, Sarah M.
Harris, Melissa B. Collins, Aaron Z. Roper, Jessica S. Carey,
John B. Bellinger III, David J. Weiner, Robert Reeves
Anderson, David M. Zionts, David W. Bowker, Catherine M.A.

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Carroll, Donna M. Farag, Paul S. Mishkin, and David B.
Toscano. Alex Young K. Oh entered an appearance.
Jordan L. Von Bokern, Andrew J. Pincus, and Robert W.
Hamburg were on the brief for amicus curiae The Chamber of
Commerce of the United States of America in support of
appellees.
Timothy P. Harkness, Kimberly H. Zelnick, Scott A.
Eisman, Adam Rosenfeld, Maria Slobodchikova, and Elischke
De Villiers were on the brief for amicus curiae Charity &
Security in support of appellees.
Before: P ILLARD and WILKINS , Circuit Judges, and
EDWARDS , Senior Circuit Judge.
Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge P ILLARD.
P ILLARD, Circuit Judge: The terrorist group Jaysh al-
Mahdi injured or killed hundreds of United States service
members and civilians as part of its years-long campaign to
harm Americans and drive the United States military out of
Iraq. Plaintiffs are victims of Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks and
family members of victims. During the period in which the
victims were attacked, Jaysh al-Mahdi openly controlled Iraq’s
Ministry of Health (Ministry) and used it as a vehicle to direct
terrorist activity against Americans. Plaintiffs claim
defendants, large pharmaceutical and medical equipment
manufacturers and suppliers, knowingly gave substantial
assistance to the attacks that injured them, violating the Anti-
Terrorism Act (ATA), as amended by the Justice Against
Sponsors of Terrorism Act, and state law.
Plaintiffs allege that defendants assisted Jaysh al-Mahdi by
doing business with the Ministry in an unusual and unlawful

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way, to the benefit of the terrorist group. According to the
complaint, defendants paid illegal cash bribes directly to the
group and supplied extra, off-the-books batches of valuable
medical goods that Jaysh al-Mahdi monetized on the black
market to fund its operations against Americans. As they did
so, defendants knew that the funds and goods they were
gratuitously providing to Jaysh al-Mahdi financed its attacks
against Americans, including the victims in this case.
Defendants’ agents finalized contracts at in-person meetings at
the Ministry, where conspicuous displays of Jaysh al-Mahdi
weaponry, fighters, and propaganda made clear who was in
charge. And defendants’ compliance personnel had access to
contemporaneous reports in mainstream media that detailed the
terrorists’ control of the Ministry and their use of cash and in-
kind bribes to fund attacks. Over the period in question,
plaintiffs allege defendants repeatedly and voluntarily renewed
contracts with and provided illegal bribes to Jaysh al-Mahdi,
with payments occurring on the heels of attacks against
Americans and providing support for further attacks.
The district court held that the complaint failed to state
claims for either primary (direct) or secondary (aiding-and-
abetting) liability under the ATA and that the court lacked
personal jurisdiction over six foreign defendants. On appeal,
we reversed, holding that plaintiffs had pleaded facts sufficient
to support their aiding-and-abetting claims, that plaintiffs had
adequately pleaded that defendants’ payments to Jaysh al-
Mahdi proximately caused plaintiffs’ injuries on the direct
liability claims, and that U.S. federal courts had personal
jurisdiction over the foreign defendants. Shortly afterward, the
Supreme Court granted defendants’ petition for a writ of
certiorari, vacated our decision, and remanded the case to us
for further consideration in light of Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh,
598 U.S. 471 (2023), which clarified the scope of secondary
liability under the ATA.

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Having considered Taamneh and with the aid of
supplemental briefing and oral argument, we reverse the
district court’s dismissal of plaintiffs’ secondary liability
claims. Secondary liability under the ATA, as interpreted by
Taamneh, requires conscious, voluntary, and culpable
participation in another’s tortious activity to ensure liability is
limited to conduct that is genuinely blameworthy. It also
requires a nexus between defendants’ assistance and the acts of
international terrorism that injure plaintiffs. Liability does not
attach to those who, like the Taamneh defendants, passively
and tangentially aid terrorists in the ordinary course of their
business. This complaint, however, describes conduct that is
far from “business as usual”—with allegations sufficient to
satisfy both of Taamneh’s requirements. Plaintiffs adequately
allege that defendants’ participation was conscious, voluntary,
and culpable: Defendants knew their assistance would be used
to launch attacks on plaintiffs, and they repeatedly structured
their transactions in an unusual and unlawful manner that
served to facilitate Jaysh al-Mahdi’s operations. Plaintiffs
clearly identify a nexus between the alleged attacks and
defendants’ direct cash and in-kind payments to Jaysh al-
Mahdi. The attacks, which were a discrete subset of Jaysh al-
Mahdi’s terrorist activities, were a natural and virtually
inevitable consequence of defendants’ unusual, corrupt, and
plentiful assistance.
Taamneh did not address the standard for direct liability
under the ATA and so we reinstate our holding on the direct
liability claims that plaintiffs adequately pleaded that
defendants’ payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi proximately caused
plaintiffs’ injuries. Defendants did not challenge (nor did
Taamneh address) our holdings that the manufacturer
defendants were not too remote from the conduct alleged to be
held liable and that certain foreign defendants were subject to
the personal jurisdiction of U.S. federal courts. Accordingly,

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we do not disturb those holdings and remand to the district
court for further proceedings consistent with our opinions.
I.
The factual and procedural background of this case is
spelled out in prior opinions. See Atchley v. AstraZeneca UK
Ltd., 474 F. Supp. 3d 194 (D.D.C. 2020); Atchley v.
AstraZeneca UK Ltd., 22 F.4th 204 (D.C. Cir. 2022). We
assume familiarity with those opinions and recapitulate the
facts and procedural history most relevant following the
Supreme Court’s remand. The facts are drawn from plaintiffs’
complaint and are assumed true for the purposes of reviewing
defendants’ motion to dismiss. See Schubarth v. Fed. Republic
of Germany, 891 F.3d 392, 395 (D.C. Cir. 2018).
In 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Even before the
invasion, Hezbollah—a Lebanese group designated as a
Foreign Terrorist Organization under U.S. law since 1997—
made plans to undermine the expected U.S. presence. From
April 2003, Hezbollah’s “chief terrorist mastermind, Imad
Mugniyeh,” collaborated with the powerful Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr to establish a fighting force in Iraq to violently
expel the Americans. Third Am. Compl. ¶ 56 (J.A. 115).
Sadr modeled his movement in Iraq, the “Sadrist Trend,”
on Hezbollah. Each group had a political wing and a terrorist
wing. In each, the two wings were closely connected, sharing
funding and leadership. Jaysh al-Mahdi, the terrorist wing of
the Sadrist Trend, was a deadly force in Iraq. Its attacks likely
killed over five hundred Americans and injured many more.
As Jaysh al-Mahdi took root and grew, Hezbollah recruited,
trained, and armed its fighters and helped it plan and carry out
operations in Iraq. By July 2007, General David Petraeus
concluded that Jaysh al-Mahdi was “more of a hindrance to

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long-term security in Iraq” than was al-Qaeda in Iraq. Id. ¶ 62
(J.A. 118) (quoting Michael R. Gordon & Gen. Bernard E.
Trainor, The Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for
Iraq, From George W. Bush to Barack Obama 422 (1st ed.
2012)).
In the immediate aftermath of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s
regime, the Sadrists set their sights on the Iraqi Ministry of
Health and Kimadia, Iraq’s state-owned import company, as
sources of power and funding. Sadrists began assuming key
positions throughout the Ministry and purging employees
disloyal to them in early 2004. Jaysh al-Mahdi’s influence thus
spread throughout the Ministry. According to one insider, at
the height of the group’s control, the Ministry employed an
estimated 70,000 Jaysh al-Mahdi members. In 2005, after
Sadrists won enough seats in parliamentary elections, Jaysh al-
Mahdi solidified full control over the Ministry.
Jaysh al-Mahdi used the Ministry as a front and
headquarters for its campaign of terrorist violence. For
example, the organization converted the nation’s public
hospitals “into terrorist bases where Sunnis were abducted,
tortured, and murdered.” Id. ¶ 3 (J.A. 98). Ministry
ambulances transported terrorist “death squads” around
Baghdad. Id. And the Deputy Minister of Health converted
the Ministry’s Facilities Protection Service into a division of
Jaysh al-Mahdi, deploying its officers to torture and kill Sadr’s
enemies. See id. Jaysh al-Mahdi’s dominance was obvious to
anyone physically present at Ministry headquarters: “Death to
America” slogans adorned the halls, armed Jaysh al-Mahdi
fighters freely roamed while Americans could not safely enter,
and Jaysh al-Mahdi’s flag flew at the entrance. Id. ¶¶ 3, 10
(J.A. 98, 101). Plaintiffs contend that the Ministry “functioned
more as a terrorist apparatus than a health organization” during
the relevant period. Id. ¶ 3 (J.A. 98). Sadrist control over the

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Ministry and Kimadia “was at its apex from late 2004 through
2008,” during which time “there was no meaningful distinction
between” the Ministry and Jaysh al-Mahdi. Id. ¶ 104 (J.A.
134). In 2008, a different political party assumed control of the
Ministry, but Jaysh al-Mahdi kept “de facto control” of the
Ministry’s contracting process until at least 2013. Id.
Jaysh al-Mahdi used its control of the Ministry to obtain
financing for its terrorist activities by securing bribes from
defendants in the medical-goods procurement process.
Between 2004 and 2013, defendants, who are pharmaceutical
and medical equipment manufacturers and their affiliated
suppliers, allegedly made illegal payments in both cash and
goods to Jaysh al-Mahdi, following methods already familiar
from defendants’ corrupt dealings with Kimadia under the
earlier Oil-for-Food program during Saddam Hussein’s reign.
First, defendants paid cash bribes (called “commissions”) to
Jaysh al-Mahdi in order to obtain lucrative Kimadia contracts.
These “commissions” were typically 20 per cent of any
contract price. “The Sadrists extracted their ‘commissions’
from foreign medical-goods companies by using their leverage
over multiple points of the transaction lifecycle.” Id. ¶ 145
(J.A. 154). Second, defendants gave the Ministry extra, off-
the-books batches of drugs and medical devices for free on top
of the quantities Kimadia paid for. Free goods packaged
alongside the paid goods, but which nobody expected to appear
in the Ministry’s inventory, were readily available to Jaysh al-
Mahdi to provide to its fighters and sell on the black market.
The constant stream of bribes and free goods helped
finance Jaysh al-Mahdi’s terrorist attacks on U.S. nationals,
including the victims in this case. The complaint details
hundreds of individual acts of international terrorism
committed by Jaysh al-Mahdi between 2005 and 2009 that
killed or permanently maimed the victims. Virtually all the

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attacks took place within Baghdad neighborhoods like Sadr
City that were well known to be Jaysh al-Mahdi strongholds.
And some attacks even took place in the immediate vicinity of
the Ministry’s headquarters in eastern Baghdad.
Defendants allegedly knew that their bribe payments and
free good shipments were being used to fund Jaysh al-Mahdi
and its numerous attacks on the victims in this case.
Defendants’ local agents, often called “Scientific Bureaus,”
finalized their contracts at the Ministry headquarters
surrounded by terrorist propaganda and other indicia of Jaysh
al-Mahdi’s control. Id. ¶¶ 148-49, 180 (J.A. 155-56, 170).
And, as sophisticated global businesses, defendants had
corporate security and compliance operations keeping them
abreast of risks in the markets they served. As part of those
efforts, plaintiffs plausibly allege, defendants would have also
become aware of frequent mainstream media reports
describing Sadr’s control of the Ministry and use of that
position to launch terrorist attacks against Americans.
Knowledge of Jaysh al-Mahdi’s control was so widespread that
some U.S. government personnel in Iraq referred to Jaysh al-
Mahdi as “The Pill Army” because its fighters were sometimes
paid in drugs that they either consumed or sold for cash on the
black market. Id. ¶ 9 (J.A. 101).
Plaintiffs each assert two primary liability and two
secondary liability claims under the ATA, as well as a variety
of state-law claims arising from the same conduct. As noted
above, the district court dismissed all of plaintiffs’ claims and
dismissed the foreign defendants for lack of personal
jurisdiction. We reversed the district court on three points of
law. First, we held that plaintiffs pleaded facts sufficient to
support their secondary liability claims against the motion to
dismiss for failure to state a claim. Specifically, plaintiffs
adequately alleged that Hezbollah, a designated Foreign

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Terrorist Organization, planned or authorized the relevant
attacks as required under the ATA and that defendants
knowingly provided substantial assistance to Jaysh al-Mahdi.
Second, with respect to the direct liability claims, we reversed
the district court’s holding that the Ministry itself was an
“independent intermediary” defeating proximate causation.
See Atchley, 474 F. Supp. 3d at 209. We held that plaintiffs
adequately pleaded that defendants’ payments to Jaysh al-
Mahdi proximately caused the victims’ injuries and remanded
to the district court to consider in the first instance whether
plaintiffs also alleged that defendants themselves committed
any acts of international terrorism (for example, by financing
or providing material support for terrorism) within the meaning
of the ATA. Finally, we held that U.S. federal courts had
constitutional authority to exercise specific personal
jurisdiction over the foreign supplier defendants because
plaintiffs’ claims “arise out of or relate to” those defendants’
contacts with the United States.
Shortly thereafter, the Supreme Court decided Taamneh,
which clarified the scope of secondary liability under the ATA.
Defendants petitioned for a writ of certiorari, which the
Supreme Court granted, vacating our judgment and remanding
the case for further consideration in light of Taamneh.
II.
We review de novo the district court’s dismissal of the
amended complaint for failure to state a claim, Owens v. BNP
Paribas, S.A. (Owens IV), 897 F.3d 266, 272 (D.C. Cir. 2018),
and for lack of personal jurisdiction, Livnat v. Palestinian
Auth., 851 F.3d 45, 48 (D.C. Cir. 2017). We assume the truth
of plaintiffs’ factual allegations and draw all reasonable
inferences in plaintiffs’ favor. Owens IV, 897 F.3d at 272. We
begin by addressing plaintiffs’ claims under the ATA for both

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secondary and direct liability and conclude by addressing
personal jurisdiction.
A.
The ATA recognizes a private right of action in tort for
United States nationals injured by acts of international
terrorism. It authorizes victims of terrorism to recover against
anyone shown to have played a primary (direct) or secondary
(aiding-and-abetting) role in terrorist acts.
Plaintiffs assert both types of liability against defendants.
Needless to say, plaintiffs do not allege that the defendant
companies directly maimed or killed the victims; the claim is
that the companies provided funds and goods that substantially
assisted those who did. Specifically, plaintiffs contend that
defendants repeatedly and directly provided cash bribes and
discounted or free drugs and medical supplies to Jaysh al-
Mahdi during a period when the group was known to have
commandeered the Ministry of Health and adopted it as a base
for an ongoing campaign of terrorist attacks against U.S.
nationals. Plaintiffs allege defendants knowingly and
substantially aided Jaysh al-Mahdi through their persistent and
illegal business practices: For instance, plaintiffs allege that
some of defendants’ bribes to Jaysh al-Mahdi officials were
disguised as “free goods” “packaged . . . in a manner conducive
to street resale” and provided off the books. Compl. ¶ 5 (J.A.
99). The victims, as U.S. nationals, were the targets of Jaysh
al-Mahdi’s terrorist campaign to intimidate Americans and
drive U.S. forces out of Iraq.
The ATA as originally enacted authorized suit by “[a]ny
national of the United States injured in his or her person,
property, or business by reason of an act of international
terrorism.” 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a). As relevant here, the “by

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reason of” language in the statute requires “some causal
connection between the act of international terrorism and the
U.S. national’s injury.” Owens IV, 897 F.3d at 270. The statute
made no explicit reference to tort liability for aiders and
abettors. See id. at 277. Some courts, including ours,
interpreted that silence as barring such liability, applying a
general presumption that Congress does not intend aiding-and-
abetting liability without expressly saying so. See, e.g., id. at
277-78; Rothstein v. UBS AG, 708 F.3d 82, 97 (2d Cir. 2013);
see also Cent. Bank of Denver, N.A. v. First Interstate Bank of
Denver, N.A., 511 U.S. 164, 182 (1994) (“[W]hen Congress
enacts a statute under which a person may sue and recover
damages from a private defendant for the defendant’s violation
of some statutory norm, there is no general presumption that
the plaintiff may also sue aiders and abettors.”).
In 2016, Congress amended the ATA via the Justice
Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) to establish
aiding-and-abetting liability for anyone who “knowingly
provid[es] substantial assistance” to acts of international
terrorism. 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d). The JASTA’s express
objective is:
to provide civil litigants with the broadest possible
basis, consistent with the Constitution of the United
States, to seek relief against persons, entities, and
foreign countries, wherever acting and wherever they
may be found, that have provided material support,
directly or indirectly, to foreign organizations or
persons that engage in terrorist activities against the
United States.
JASTA, Pub. L. No. 114-222, § 2(b), 130 Stat. 852, 853 (2016)
(Amendment). The statute names our decision in Halberstam
v. Welch, 705 F.2d 472 (D.C. Cir. 1983), as providing the

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“proper legal framework for how such liability should
function.” Amendment § 2(a)(5). In the JASTA, Congress
also added an element to prove secondary liability that was not
required for direct liability under the ATA: It confined aiding-
and-abetting liability to injuries in which a designated Foreign
Terrorist Organization, denominated as such under U.S. law,
played a specified role. See 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2).
Having considered the Supreme Court’s interpretation of
section 2333(d) in Taamneh and with the aid of supplemental
briefing and oral argument, we hold that plaintiffs sufficiently
allege secondary liability.
1.
Secondary liability for aiding and abetting “reaches
persons who do not engage in the proscribed activities at all,
but who give a degree of aid to those who do.” Cent. Bank of
Denver, 511 U.S. at 176. As relevant here, the ATA as
amended by the JASTA provides for secondary liability against
“any person who aids and abets, by knowingly providing
substantial assistance” to “an act of international terrorism.” 18
U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2). Aiding-and-abetting liability is confined
to “an injury arising from an act of international terrorism
committed, planned, or authorized by an organization that had
been designated as a foreign terrorist organization under
section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C.
1189).” Id.
To state a claim of aiding and abetting under the ATA,
plaintiffs thus need to plead three statutory elements: (1) an
injury arising from an act of international terrorism; (2) which
act was committed, planned, or authorized by a designated
Foreign Terrorist Organization; and (3) that defendants aided
or abetted the act of international terrorism by knowingly
providing substantial assistance.

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As to the first of those elements, defendants’ initial appeal
did not challenge the sufficiency of plaintiffs’ allegations that
plaintiffs each suffered injury from an act of international
terrorism. See Atchley, 22 F.4th at 216. As to the second,
defendants’ supplemental briefing provides no basis for
revisiting our prior holding that plaintiffs successfully alleged
that Hezbollah, a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,
“planned and authorized” the attacks, id. at 218-19, so we
hereby reinstate it. Defendants dispute here only the third
element of the aiding-and-abetting claim: whether they
knowingly and substantially assisted the attacks against the
victims through their alleged corrupt and illegal payments and
gifts to Jaysh al-Mahdi. We begin our analysis of the adequacy
of plaintiffs’ complaint as to that element with an overview of
the salient aspects of the Supreme Court decision in Taamneh
clarifying the framework for analyzing that third element.
a.
In Taamneh, the Supreme Court addressed a secondary
liability claim under the amended ATA that sought to impose
aiding-and-abetting liability on a company that failed to
exclude terrorists from its generally available services. Family
members of an American killed in a 2017 terrorist attack on the
Reina nightclub in Istanbul—perpetrated by a member of the
Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)—sued Twitter,
Facebook, and Google, alleging that ISIS had used defendants’
social media platforms to recruit terrorists, raise funds, and
spread propaganda. Taamneh, 598 U.S. at 478. Plaintiffs did
not allege “that defendants treated ISIS any differently from
anyone else” using their platforms: ISIS “was able to upload
content to the platforms and connect with third parties, just like
everyone else” on the platforms, and “defendants’
recommendation algorithms matched ISIS-related content to
users most likely to be interested in that content—again, just

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like any other content.” Id. at 500. Plaintiffs did not allege that
ISIS used defendants’ platforms to plan or coordinate the Reina
attack. Id. at 498. Instead, plaintiffs sought to hold the
companies liable for aiding and abetting terrorism based solely
on allegations that they knew ISIS, a designated foreign
terrorist organization, was generally using the companies’
platforms and recommendation algorithms to reach new
audiences, yet failed to take steps to stop the organization or its
members from doing so. Id. at 481-82. That theory lacked any
nexus to the attack on the Reina nightclub; it would
“necessarily hold defendants liable as having aided and abetted
each and every ISIS terrorist act committed anywhere in the
world.” Id. at 501.
The Court concluded that plaintiffs failed to plausibly
allege that defendants aided and abetted ISIS in carrying out
the Reina nightclub attack. Id. at 478. To arrive at that
conclusion, the Court examined the ATA’s language attaching
liability to “any person who aids and abets, by knowingly
providing substantial assistance, . . . an act of international
terrorism.” Id. at 483 (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2)). The
Court addressed two central questions: “First, what exactly
does it mean to ‘aid and abet’? Second, what precisely must
the defendant have ‘aided and abetted’?” Id. at 484.
Responding to the first question, the Court noted that while
the ATA does not define “aids and abets,” those terms “are
familiar to the common law.” Id. (citing Cent. Bank of Denver,
511 U.S. at 181). What is more, Congress specified our aiding-
and-abetting decision in Halberstam as providing the “proper
legal framework for how such liability should function.” Id. at
485 & n.6 (citing Amendment § 2(a)(5), and Halberstam, 705
F.2d 472). As relevant in Taamneh and here, Halberstam
synthesized three key elements from the common law: (1) The
party whom the defendant aids must perform a wrongful act

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that causes an injury; (2) the defendant must be generally aware
of its role as part of an overall illegal scheme or tortious activity
at the time the defendant provides assistance; and (3) the
defendant must knowingly and substantially assist the principal
violation. Id. at 486. Halberstam articulated six further factors
to help determine whether a defendant’s assistance was
“substantial”: “(1) the nature of the act assisted, (2) the amount
of assistance provided, (3) whether the defendant was present
at the time of the principal tort, (4) the defendant’s relation to
the tortious actor, (5) the defendant’s state of mind, and (6) the
duration of the assistance given.” Id. at 486-87 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted).
At the same time, the Court in Taamneh warned that the
elements and factors in Halberstam “should not be accepted as
immutable components” of aiding-and-abetting liability and
may “be merged or articulated somewhat differently without
affecting their basic thrust.” Id. at 487 (internal quotation
marks and citation omitted). The Court stressed that aiding-
and-abetting liability in Halberstam arose from a “distinctive
fact pattern” in which Linda Hamilton, the bookkeeper and
romantic partner of burglar Bernard Welch, was held liable for
aiding and abetting a murder Welch committed during a home
break-in that went awry. Id. at 485-86. Because Welch did not
disclose to Hamilton the source of the jewelry and antiques he
obtained during his solo nighttime forays, Hamilton was
unaware that a burglary, let alone ensuing murder, was going
to take place. Id. at 485-86. Yet Hamilton provided substantial
assistance to Welch’s business “by helping him turn his stolen
goods into ‘legitimate’ wealth, thereby intending to help Welch
succeed by performing a function crucial to any thief,” and the
couple amassed a substantial fortune with no other means of
support. Id. at 485, 487 (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). Those circumstances sufficed to suggest that
Hamilton was generally aware that she was substantially aiding

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Welch in some type of personal property crime at night, of
which violence such as Mr. Halberstam’s death was a
foreseeable risk. Id. at 485-87; see Halberstam, 702 F.2d at
488.
Drawing on the common law of aiding-and-abetting
liability, the Court in Taamneh described Halberstam’s “basic
thrust” as attaching liability to “conscious, voluntary, and
culpable participation in another’s wrongdoing.” Taamneh,
598 U.S. at 488, 493. Culpability is measured by “the twin
requirements” of “knowing” and “substantial” assistance,
which “work[] in tandem” to permit a court to “infer conscious
and culpable assistance,” with a “lesser showing of one
demanding a greater showing of the other.” Id. at 491-92.
Weaker allegations of state of mind can still support a claim for
aiding-and-abetting liability so long as they are coupled with
stronger allegations of substantiality. For instance, if a
“provider of services does so in an unusual way” for the benefit
of a tortfeasor, the provider may be liable for aiding and
abetting the tort. Id. at 502.
Functionally, Taamneh explains, a combined showing of
knowledge and substantiality is necessary to prevent aiding-
and-abetting liability from sweeping in those who provide
“only tangential assistance” (e.g., bystanders who fail to call
the police, or merchants who incidentally aid tortious activity
through the ordinary conduct of their business). Id. at 488-89.
A sufficiently strong showing on those dovetailing factors
ensures liability is limited to those whose conduct is “truly
culpable.” Id. at 489.
Turning to the second question—what is it that the
defendant must have aided and abetted?—the Taamneh Court
again drew on the common law of aiding-and-abetting liability
and the text of section 2333(d)(2) to hold that defendants must

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have “aided and abetted the act of international terrorism that
injured the plaintiffs.” Id. at 497 (emphasis added). That is to
say, liability under the ATA requires that defendants’ alleged
assistance relate to, i.e. have a “nexus” with, the acts of
international terrorism. Id. at 495.
Like the ingredients of culpability, nexus operates on a
sliding scale. At one end lie cases with a “strict,” “direct[],” or
“close” nexus between the assistance alleged and the act of
terrorism. Id. at 494, 496. In Taamneh, a close nexus might
have existed, for example, if ISIS had used defendants’
platforms to plan or coordinate the Reina nightclub attack. See
id. at 498. But the facts as pleaded in Taamneh—that ISIS used
defendants’ platforms to recruit and propagandize for their
movement but not to support or carry out the specific terrorist
attack at issue, id. at 501—fall on the other end of the scale,
with practically no nexus at all between the alleged assistance
and the act of terrorism that harmed plaintiffs. When there is a
“lack of any concrete nexus between defendants’ services” and
the act of terrorism, plaintiffs must prove defendants provided
such “systemic[] and pervasive[]” assistance to a terrorist
group that they could be said to aid and abet every act of
terrorism the group commits as part of a common enterprise.
Id. at 501. Between those two extremes, situations involving
“more remote support can still constitute aiding and abetting in
the right case.” Id. at 496. The practical upshot is that to
survive a motion to dismiss plaintiffs must allege some
connection between defendants’ assistance and the acts that
injured them. If they cannot, plaintiffs must instead allege
defendants provided a type of pervasive support that
demonstrates a “near-common enterprise” with the terrorist
group. Id. at 502.
To summarize, Taamneh draws on the common law to
establish two variables bearing on liability for aiding and

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abetting under the ATA: (1) “culpability,” which turns on the
combined strength of plaintiffs’ allegations regarding (a) the
substantiality of the assistance defendants provide and (b) the
degree of their awareness or intentionality about the harms they
aid; and (2) a “nexus” measured by the closeness of the
relationship between defendants’ assistance and the act of
international terrorism that injured plaintiffs. As to the
relationship between those two main variables, the Court
explains:
When there is a direct nexus between the defendant’s
acts and the tort, courts may more easily infer such
culpable assistance. But, the more attenuated the
nexus, the more courts should demand that plaintiffs
show culpable participation through intentional aid
that substantially furthered the tort.
Id. at 506. Put differently, the degree of connection between
the culpable assistance and the tortious act sets the bar for how
strong the indicia of culpability need be: A weak connection
between the defendant’s knowing conduct and the act of
terrorism requires a stronger degree of culpability, whereas a
more direct nexus may establish liability despite relatively
weaker indicia of culpability.
Guided by Taamneh, our renewed analysis of defendants’
potential aiding-and-abetting liability proceeds along that path.
Because the strength of the nexus between the assistance and
the act of international terrorism sets the bar for the showing of
culpability required, we begin by analyzing the nexus alleged
here. We then turn to culpability and evaluate the strength of
the allegations regarding defendants’ knowledge and the
substantiality of their assistance. We conclude that plaintiffs
allege a plainly discernable nexus between defendants’ corrupt
payments and Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks on U.S. nationals in

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Iraq. Evaluating culpability, we conclude that plaintiffs make
strong allegations regarding defendants’ awareness and very
strong allegations regarding the substantiality of defendants’
assistance, provided through a scheme of bespoke bribery and
gifts. Under the circumstances of this case, that nexus coupled
with those culpability allegations suffice to state a claim for
aiding-and-abetting liability under the ATA.
b.
In Taamneh, the Court underscored the importance of
analyzing the nexus between defendants’ alleged assistance
and the act or acts of international terrorism that harmed
plaintiffs. Indeed, the failure by plaintiffs in that case to draw
any “concrete nexus” between the Reina nightclub attack and
defendants’ social media platforms was fatal to their claims.
Id. at 501. They did not, for example, allege that ISIS “used
defendants’ platforms to plan or coordinate the Reina attack”
or that the attacker himself “ever used Facebook, YouTube, or
Twitter.” Id. at 498. At most, plaintiffs alleged that ISIS
maintained accounts on defendants’ social media platforms,
that defendants’ recommendation algorithms treated ISIS-
related content like any other content in promoting it to users
most likely to be interested in it, and that defendants took
insufficient steps to identify and remove ISIS supporters and
content from their platforms. Id. Without a nexus between the
assistance alleged and the Reina attack itself, plaintiffs’ theory
would have held defendants liable for aiding and abetting every
ISIS terrorist act committed anywhere in the world. Id. at 501.
And plaintiffs failed to allege facts sufficient to show that
“defendants and ISIS formed a near-common enterprise of the
kind that could establish such broad liability.” Id. at 502.
The cash bribes and free pharmaceuticals defendants
allegedly provided to Jaysh al-Mahdi have a far closer and

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more distinct tie to Jaysh al-Mahdi’s acts of terrorism against
U.S. personnel in Iraq. Unlike the defendants in Taamneh, who
merely failed to act while ISIS (like everybody else) used their
platforms, and whose platforms lacked any connection to the
Reina attacks, defendants here persistently pursued
opportunities to do business with the Iraqi Ministry of Health
and Kimadia in particular and made corrupt payments that
“directly financ[ed]” Jaysh al-Mahdi’s sustained campaign of
terrorist attacks. Third Am. Compl. ¶ 1 (J.A. 97). Plaintiffs
contend that defendants’ activities enabled Jaysh al-Mahdi to
purchase arms and ammunition, pay its fighters either in cash
or “in diverted pharmaceuticals” provided for free as
kickbacks, and plan attacks that would go on to “kill[] or
injure[] thousands of Americans,” including the victims in this
case. Id. ¶¶ 1, 9 (J.A. 97, 101). And they argue that Jaysh al-
Mahdi’s repeated attacks on the victims were the obvious result
of defendants’ practices throughout the period in question. It
is highly noteworthy that defendants continued to make
payments despite a steady drumbeat of reporting on Jaysh al-
Mahdi’s use of these funds to plan and execute attacks on
Americans. See, e.g., id. ¶ 183 (J.A. 172-75). Taamneh
expressly contemplated the imposition of aiding-and-abetting
liability in a situation like this one, where a “provider of routine
services does so in an unusual way,” rendering the provider
responsible for “some definable subset of terrorist attacks.”
598 U.S. at 502.
Defendants disagree that the allegations reveal any nexus
between their alleged assistance and the attacks that injured
plaintiffs. They see no definable nexus between defendants’
“manufacture or sale of medical goods . . . and any specific
attack injuring any plaintiff” and object that the complaint
“never ties those medicines or equipment to specific attacks.”
Appellees Br. 20, 23. In defendants’ view, to state a claim for
secondary liability, plaintiffs must trace a direct line between

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the bribes that defendants provided (whether cash or in-kind)
and the specific attacks that injured plaintiffs. Under that test,
plaintiffs would need to allege, for example, that a particular
cash bribe defendants funneled to Jaysh al-Mahdi was
earmarked to pay for certain weapons and that those same
weapons were then used in an attack that injured plaintiffs.
But the Supreme Court in Taamneh declined to adopt the
defendants’ proposed “direct traceability” test. Even as it held
that the allegations before it fell short, it clarified that “aiding
and abetting does not require the defendant to have known all
particulars of the primary actor’s plan” because, for example, a
defendant may be liable for “other torts that were a foreseeable
risk of [an] intended tort.” 598 U.S. at 495-96 (internal
quotation marks and citation omitted). Accordingly, the Court
expressly rejected the Taamneh defendants’ argument—
echoed by defendants here—that they could be held liable only
if there were a “strict nexus between their assistance and [the
Reina nightclub] attack.” Id. at 494. Instead, it suggested that
“even more remote support can still constitute aiding and
abetting in the right case.” Id. at 496.
Requiring an overly rigid nexus is especially inappropriate
when a plaintiff alleges that a defendant provided financial
assistance. As the Supreme Court has previously noted,
“[m]oney is fungible,” and it is often effectively impossible for
plaintiffs to plausibly allege that a particular dollar of funding
enabled a specific attack. Holder v. Humanitarian Law
Project, 561 U.S. 1, 31 (2010). Requiring such allegations
would be inconsistent with Congress’s intent in enacting the
JASTA, which sought “to provide civil litigants with the
broadest possible basis . . . to seek relief against persons . . .
that have provided material support, directly or indirectly, to
foreign organizations or persons that engage in terrorist
activities.” Amendment § 2(b). It is noteworthy that, in

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Taamneh, the Supreme Court suggests that funding-based
claims may require less of a nexus. After dismissing most of
the Taamneh plaintiffs’ claims for lack of sufficient nexus, the
Court dealt separately with plaintiffs’ allegation that Google
supported ISIS financially through revenue sharing. The Court
found no merit in that claim, but only after determining that the
complaint failed to provide sufficient detail about the
substantiality of the financial assistance, such as the amount
and frequency of the revenue sharing. Taamneh, 598 U.S. at
505-06.
Defendants further contend that plaintiffs’ theory, like that
of the Taamneh plaintiffs, “would necessarily hold defendants
liable as having aided and abetted each and every attack
committed by Jaysh al-Mahdi anywhere, anytime.” Appellees
Br. 20-21 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In
their view, plaintiffs must therefore demonstrate that
defendants’ role in supporting Jaysh al-Mahdi was akin to that
of a co-conspirator—so pervasive or “systemic that [they were]
aiding and abetting every wrongful act committed by that
enterprise.” 598 U.S. at 496. Because plaintiffs have not so
alleged, defendants conclude, their claims must fail.
That argument rests on a mistaken premise. Plaintiffs here
do not seek to hold defendants liable on the theory that they
aided and abetted every act of international terrorism Jaysh al-
Mahdi committed anytime and anywhere. Instead, the
complaint tells a localized story that ties defendants’ alleged
knowing provision of substantial aid to a defined subset of
Jaysh al-Mahdi’s tortious attacks—conduct that was
circumscribed temporally and geographically. Temporally, the
complaint alleges that defendants’ payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi
began in late 2004 and continued through 2013, which roughly
corresponds to the timing of the alleged attacks and the “apex”
of Jaysh al-Mahdi’s control over the Ministry of Health and

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Kimadia from 2005 to 2009. Compare Third Am. Compl. ¶ 7
(J.A. 100), with id. ¶ 16 (J.A. 104), and id. ¶ 104 (J.A. 134).
Geographically, plaintiffs’ claims are limited to aid provided
through the Ministry for attacks in Iraq, even though Jaysh al-
Mahdi carried out attacks elsewhere in the Middle East. See,
e.g., id. ¶ 348 (J.A. 242-43) (discussing Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
activities in Lebanon). Plaintiffs allege that defendants signed
the contracts with Jaysh al-Mahdi at the Ministry of Health
headquarters in Baghdad, id. ¶ 121 (J.A. 142), and that most of
Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks occurred within Baghdad’s city
limits, id. ¶ 403 (J.A. 269-73). They even identify an attack by
Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters doubling as Ministry security guards
that targeted an American convoy just outside the Ministry’s
front gate. Id. ¶ 89 (J.A. 127). Because plaintiffs’ allegations
are limited to defendants’ provision of aid to a temporally and
geographically discrete set of Jaysh al-Mahdi’s terrorist acts,
plaintiffs need not plead that defendants and Jaysh al-Mahdi
participated in a near-common enterprise of the type necessary
to state claims against defendants for aiding Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
terrorist activities without regard to where or when they
occurred.
We therefore hold that plaintiffs have alleged a nexus
between defendants’ assistance and the terrorist attacks that
injured them because the complaint’s allegations describe how
defendants provided tailored, local assistance to Jaysh al-
Mahdi at the time and in the immediate vicinity of a defined set
of Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks. These attacks against U.S. citizens
were the predictable, virtually inevitable fallout of defendants’
direct cash and in-kind payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi under the
circumstances then prevailing. We recognize that the
complaint does not spell out how Jaysh al-Mahdi converted
defendants’ assistance into weapons or equipment to carry out
each specific attack, but the statute, as interpreted by Taamneh,
does not require such detail about the connection. Only where

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the nexus is generic and attenuated and there is no showing of
a near-common enterprise are defendants shielded from
liability.
A nexus that falls short of tracing defendants’ support to
any specific attack injuring any plaintiff does call for more
robust culpability allegations to state an ATA claim than would
be required if the nexus were more direct. See Taamneh, 598
U.S. at 506. Accordingly, our inquiry into culpability
“demand[s] that plaintiffs show culpable participation through
intentional aid that substantially furthered” the acts of terrorism
in question. Id.
c.
Turning to the “culpability” variable, we evaluate the
strength of plaintiffs’ allegations regarding defendants’
awareness and the substantiality of their assistance. As the
Court noted in Taamneh, these requirements “work[] in
tandem” to permit a court to “infer conscious and culpable
assistance,” with a “lesser showing of one demanding a greater
showing of the other.” 598 U.S. at 491-92. We conclude that
plaintiffs’ allegations suffice to show defendants knew their
assistance would be used by Jaysh al-Mahdi to commit further
acts of terrorism. And, when combined with strong allegations
regarding the sheer scale of their support and the unusual and
corrupt means by which defendants aided Jaysh al-Mahdi, their
complaint supports a reasonable inference that defendants’
conduct amounted to “conscious, voluntary, and culpable
participation in another’s wrongdoing.” Id. at 493.
i.
In Taamneh, the Supreme Court clarified that the statutory
inquiry into whether defendants’ assistance was provided
“knowingly” is “designed to capture the defendants’ state of

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mind with respect to their actions and the tortious conduct
(even if not always the particular terrorist act).” Id. at 504. To
state a legally sufficient ATA claim consistent with Taamneh’s
common-law-based aiding-and-abetting analysis, a plaintiff
must at least allege that the defendant knew the assistance it
provided would be used to commit further acts of terrorism or
would materially increase the likelihood that the tortfeasor
would commit further such acts. Alleging that a defendant
generally knew its assistance was going to a terrorist
organization is insufficient. Such knowledge could meet only
Halberstam’s “general awareness” prong. See id. And the
ATA imposes liability for aiding and abetting “act[s] of
international terrorism,” not for incidentally supporting a
terrorist organization. 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2). That said, so
long as a plaintiff makes meaningful showings of nexus and
substantiality, the plaintiff need not allege that the defendant
knew the particulars of each terrorist act it aided and abetted.
Contrary to defendants’ assertions, Taamneh did not read
a specific intent requirement into the ATA. The statute
requires only that defendants “knowingly” provide substantial
assistance. 18 U.S.C. § 2333(d)(2). Even as the Supreme
Court faulted the Ninth Circuit in Taamneh for failing to give
“greater weight to defendants’ . . . undisputed lack of intent to
support ISIS” in the circumstances of that suit, 598 U.S. at 504,
the Court emphasized that a lack of purpose to help ISIS
defeated the claim only because plaintiffs had failed to allege
any discernable nexus between defendants’ assistance and the
Reina nightclub attack or any unusual feature of defendants’
actions toward the tortfeasors, id. at 490, 500-01. A “conscious
intent” may be required to impose liability on one who aids and
abets a tort by “silence and inaction,” but a lesser degree of
knowledge can support liability for one who aids and abets by
“affirmative assistance” toward commission of a tort. See

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26
Woodward v. Metro Bank of Dallas, 522 F.2d 84, 96-97 (5th
Cir. 1975).
Consistent with that conclusion, courts considering
common law aiding-and-abetting claims have long
distinguished the intent necessary to establish criminal aiding
and abetting from the less stringent state-of-mind requirement
for civil aiding and abetting. The Second Circuit, for instance,
has held that a vendor is criminally liable for aiding and
abetting only if he “participate[d] in [the wrongful activity] as
in something that he wishe[d] to bring about, that he [sought]
by his action to make it succeed,” but the vendor may be civilly
liable for aiding and abetting a crime that is merely “a natural
consequence” of his sale. United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401,
402 (2d Cir. 1938) (Hand, J.). Other courts have similarly
concluded that “borrow[ing] . . . from definitions of aiding and
abetting in the criminal field, where criminal intent is stressed
because the abettor is a criminal principal, is entirely
inappropriate” in the context of a statute that is “basically a
remedial, not a criminal one.” Passaic Daily News v. Blair,
308 A.2d 649, 656 (N.J. 1973). See, e.g., Monsen v. Consol.
Dressed Beef Co., 579 F.2d 793, 802-03 (3d Cir. 1978); Woods
v. Barnett Bank of Ft. Lauderdale, 765 F.2d 1004, 1009-10
(11th Cir. 1985); Rice v. Paladin Enters., Inc., 128 F.3d 233,
251 (4th Cir. 1997).
Here, plaintiffs allege enough to support reasonable
inferences that defendants knew their ongoing dealings with
the Ministry of Health materially supported terrorist attacks
against Americans. They allege that “[d]efendants knowingly
structured their transactions to facilitate Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
diversion of funds, drugs, and medical devices from [the
Ministry]” and knew that “Jaysh-al Mahdi used [what it
diverted] to support terrorist operations against Americans in
Iraq.” Third Am. Compl. ¶ 165 (J.A. 163). Plaintiffs identify

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three distinct, contemporaneous sources of information
supporting those allegations.
First, they allege defendants had firsthand knowledge of
Jaysh al-Mahdi’s takeover of the Ministry and use of its
resources to attack Americans. Starting in 2004, the Ministry
of Health allegedly required each of its suppliers to deliver
contracts by hand to the Ministry’s headquarters in Baghdad
and execute them on premises. To help them meet that
requirement, defendants established or contracted with trusted
sources on the ground in Baghdad, referred to as “Scientific
Bureaus,” staffed by local agents who spoke fluent Arabic and
were familiar with Ministry and Kimadia employees. Because
those agents had to enter the Ministry to deliver and execute
contracts on defendants’ behalf, they had to walk by Sadrist
propaganda posters lining the premises, Jaysh al-Mahdi
fighters in the hallways, and an array of heavy weaponry
displayed in the offices of officials. Such overt, ubiquitous
displays would have put them on notice as to Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
militarized control of the Ministry of Health. And it is entirely
reasonable to infer that those Bureaus kept defendants
informed that the Ministry of Health had fallen under the
control of Jaysh al-Mahdi, which was carrying out attacks
using Ministry resources, including funds Jaysh al-Mahdi
obtained as kickbacks from defendants. Id. ¶ 182 (J.A. 171).
Second, beginning as early as 2005, public investigative
reporting by independent news agencies and government
sources alike documented the link between defendants’
payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi and that group’s terrorist attacks
on Americans. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported
on “the diversion of millions of dollars” from the Ministry to
Jaysh al-Mahdi, which the Council on Foreign Relations
described as “an armed militia that has intermittently waged an
insurgency against U.S. forces in Iraq.” Id. ¶ 183 (J.A. 172-

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73). A report by the U.S. State Department in 2006 stated that
the Ministry was “openly under the control of . . . [Jaysh al-
Mahdi]” and enabled the group “to finance operations from
diverted medicines.” Id. ¶ 184 (J.A. 175) (alterations and
internal quotation marks omitted). And a 2007 report by the
head of the Iraqi Commission on Public Integrity was even
more explicit: It concluded that Jaysh al-Mahdi had “fully
commandeered the [M]inistr[y] of [H]ealth,” and “resold
[medical supplies] to fund the insurgency against the
Americans.” Id. ¶ 173 (J.A. 167-68) (emphasis added). 60
Minutes then ran a piece describing the defendant
pharmaceutical companies’ payments as “ill-gotten gains”
“being used to kill American troops.” Id. ¶ 174 (J.A. 168).
Plaintiffs allege that defendants must have been aware of those
widely reported stories.
Third, each defendant maintained a corporate security
group responsible for supervising its global supply chains and
ensuring business practices remained legitimate. Those
corporate security groups researched open-source media as
well as subscription-based reporting services. They powerfully
bolster the inference that defendants were aware of the news-
media and governmental reporting about Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
commandeering of the Ministry of Health and funneling of its
resources into terrorist attacks on United States personnel.
Remarkably, plaintiffs allege that one subscription service—
Stratfor—published a message in 2007 to inform its clients
(including defendants) that the Iraqi Deputy Minister of Health
“is suspected of employing militia fighters and selling health
services and equipment in return for millions of dollars that [the
Deputy Minister] later funneled to Shiite militias.” Id. ¶ 186
(J.A. 176) (emphasis added).
The timing and repetition of defendants’ assistance
strengthens the allegation that defendants knew that Jaysh al-

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Mahdi would use the assistance to conduct attacks against
Americans. Plaintiffs allege that defendants repeatedly signed
contracts with Jaysh al-Mahdi and provided it with cash and in-
kind bribes. Those transactions followed close on the heels of
publicized attacks and provided substantial support for further
attacks. For example, plaintiffs allege that between 2006 and
2008 AstraZeneca executed at least five different contracts
with the Ministry of Health facilitated by hefty bribes to Jaysh
al-Mahdi. Id. ¶ 191 (J.A. 179). During that period, Jaysh al-
Mahdi launched multiple, widely reported attacks on
Americans that killed or maimed many of the victims in this
case. AstraZeneca continued to sign contracts with the
Ministry of Health even after the Deputy Minister of Health
(himself a known commander of Jaysh al-Mahdi) was arrested
in 2007 on corruption charges. Id. ¶ 11 (J.A. 102). Plaintiffs
make similar, plausible allegations against each of the other
defendants. See id. ¶¶ 213, 246, 284, 312 (J.A. 188, 200-01,
215-16, 228-29).
Perhaps the strongest support for the inference of culpable
association is the “unusual” kind of assistance defendants
allegedly provided. Taamneh refers to “situations where [a]
provider of routine services does so in an unusual way” as
supporting aiding-and-abetting liability arising from what
might otherwise be ordinary business transactions. 598 U.S. at
502. As an example, the Supreme Court cites a case in which
it held that a licensed wholesale pharmacy’s mail-order supply
of morphine to a doctor in far greater amounts than sent in
typical orders tended to show the pharmacy’s culpability for
aiding and abetting illegal narcotics sales. See id. (citing Direct
Sales Co. v. United States, 319 U.S. 703, 707, 711-12, 714-15
(1943)). The unusual nature of those transactions indicated that
the business did not innocently treat the tortfeasor as any other
customer but rather understood that the tortfeasor intended to
use its goods for illicit purposes. See Direct Sales, 319 U.S. at

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711. In another recent case regarding aiding-and-abetting
liability, the Court confirmed that a provider of generally
available goods or services can be held secondarily liable for a
customer’s misuse of the goods if the provider engages in the
type of conduct at issue in Direct Sales. See Smith & Wesson
Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos, 605 U.S. 280, 293
(2025). The Court emphasized in Smith & Wesson that the
pharmacy in Direct Sales “actively stimulated” the doctor’s
purchases, including “by giving him special discounts for his
most massive orders,” and that the pharmacy acted “against the
backdrop of law enforcement warnings” that it was being used
as a source of supply by lawbreaking doctors. Id. at 292-93.
Like the pharmacy in Direct Sales, the pharmaceutical
companies here are alleged to have engaged in conduct that did
not conform to generally accepted business practices. Indeed,
the complaint alleges that defendants participated in a long-
running scheme to provide Jaysh al-Mahdi with cash and in-
kind bribes that amounted to at least 20 per cent of the value of
each contract, as well as off-the-books shipments of “free
goods” that were not tied to any particular contract. Third Am.
Compl. ¶ 136 (J.A. 149-50); id. ¶¶ 142-44 (J.A. 153-54).
When Jaysh al-Mahdi controlled the Ministry, its procurement
terms contained “commercially unreasonable” provisions,
“such as a requirement that the supplier re-supply ‘free of
charge’ any drugs that expired before Kimadia was able to sell
them.” Id. ¶ 123 (J.A. 143); see id. ¶ 135 (J.A. 149).
Defendants’ decisions to provide the free goods “actively
stimulated” Jaysh al-Mahdi’s purchases of pharmaceuticals.
Moreover, the complaint asserts that the bribes were
highly irregular and illegal under both U.S. and Iraqi law.
Plaintiffs contend that U.S. law enforcement agencies,
including the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
Department of Justice, brought several Foreign Corrupt

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Practices Act enforcement actions against many of the same
companies when they used the same techniques to circumvent
the restrictions of the Oil-for-Food Program with bribes to Iraqi
officials under the Saddam Hussein regime. Id. ¶ 49 (J.A. 112).
As for the corrupt dealings at issue in this case, the complaint
alleges that Coalition forces’ concerns about the Ministry of
Health supporting Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks led them to arrest
the Deputy Minister of Health in 2007 “for orchestrating
several kickback schemes to funnel millions of U.S. dollars to
militia elements.” Id. ¶ 8 (J.A. 100). No party has argued that
such bribes were a lawful business practice during the period.
Indeed, at the Taamneh oral argument, counsel for the United
States cited this case as an example of defendants allegedly
“ben[ding] the rules” and culpably departing from “their usual
course of business.” Tr. of Oral Arg. at 82-83, Twitter, Inc. v.
Taamneh, 598 U.S. 471 (2023) (No. 21-1496). Taking the
allegations in plaintiffs’ complaint as true and drawing
reasonable inferences therefrom, as we must at this stage,
defendants’ “unusual” conduct is highly probative of
secondary liability under the ATA. It is not business as usual
for sophisticated transnational companies to provide cash and
in-kind bribes to a known terrorist organization over a period
of years when that organization is openly maiming and killing
U.S. citizens.
Accordingly, we conclude that plaintiffs have successfully
alleged that defendants knew Jaysh al-Mahdi would use their
assistance to commit further acts of terrorism against the
victims. Plaintiffs’ complaint therefore makes strong
allegations of scienter, supporting the conclusion that
defendants acted culpably.

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ii.
We now turn to the question whether defendants’ alleged
assistance to Jaysh al-Mahdi’s terrorist attacks was
“substantial.” The “point” of Halberstam’s six substantiality
factors “is to help courts capture the essence of aiding and
abetting: participation in another’s wrongdoing that is both
significant and culpable enough to justify attributing the
principal wrongdoing to the aider and abettor.” Taamneh, 598
U.S. at 504. The Court’s opinion in Taamneh faults the Ninth
Circuit for “focusing . . . primarily on the value of defendants’
platforms to ISIS, rather than whether defendants culpably
associated themselves with ISIS’ actions.” Id. The Taamneh
plaintiffs failed to allege a culpable association because “ISIS’
ability to benefit from [defendants’] platforms was merely
incidental to defendants’ services and general business
models,” and those defendants had only an “arm’s-length
relationship with ISIS . . . no different from their relationship
with . . . other users.” Id. The crux of plaintiffs’ complaint was
the platforms’ “failure to act” to detect and remove ISIS
accounts and content from among the billions of user accounts
and postings on their platforms. Id. at 501. But, as the Supreme
Court notes, the common law generally disfavors failure to act
as a basis for aiding-and abetting-liability. Id. By contrast, the
Court suggests, allegations of “more direct, active” aid,
especially aid provided “in an unusual way,” can show
substantiality, and “might . . . establish liability with a lesser
showing of scienter.” Id. at 502.
Guided by Taamneh, we treat Halberstam’s substantiality
factors not as “immutable components,” but as conceptually
related. Id. at 487. We accordingly highlight the subset of
factors most germane to whether these defendants culpably
associated themselves with the tortious conduct that harmed
these plaintiffs. We recognize that different factors may be

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decisive in other cases. Here, however, the most salient factors
are (1) the relationship between defendants and Jaysh al-
Mahdi; (2) the amount and kind of assistance defendants
provided; and (3) the duration of defendants’ assistance. We
combine the latter two factors for analytical clarity.
First, plaintiffs allege a relationship between Jaysh al-
Mahdi and defendants that was active, direct, and
particularized. Unlike the defendants in Taamneh, who stood
by when ISIS created standard accounts and made posts on the
social media defendants’ platforms just as hundreds of millions
of users do each day, defendants here had bespoke dealings
with Jaysh al-Mahdi. Defendants negotiated their contracts
with the Ministry and directly supplied Jaysh al-Mahdi with
cash and drugs to win its business. Defendants responded to
the Ministry’s unusual solicitations, proposing prices for the
quantity of goods the Ministry sought, paying cash bribes to
Jaysh al-Mahdi, and specifying the quantity of “extra goods”
that they would provide to Jaysh al-Mahdi for free. Third Am.
Compl. ¶¶ 4-5 (J.A. 98-99). If a defendant won a tendering
round, it would—as the Ministry required—execute a formal
sales contract by hand inside the Ministry headquarters in
Baghdad, surrounded by Jaysh al-Mahdi fighters, propaganda,
and weaponry. Id. ¶¶ 120-21 (J.A. 141-42). That voluntary,
tailored relationship is the type courts require under the
common law to ground aiding-and-abetting liability in culpable
misconduct. It was notably absent from the arm’s-length,
failure-to-act allegations in Taamneh. 598 U.S. at 498-99.
Second, the scale of the aid defendants allegedly provided
and the duration for which they provided it also support the
inference that defendants culpably associated themselves with
Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks on Americans. Plaintiffs estimate that
defendants provided “millions of U.S. dollars” that were
funneled to Jaysh al-Mahdi’s terrorist operations for nearly a

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decade. Id. ¶ 171 (J.A. 166). In just one transaction in 2006,
one of the defendants, Pfizer, allegedly provided Jaysh al-
Mahdi an off-the-books payoff in the form of a hemophilia
drug called BeneFix valued at $3.7 million. The inference of
defendants’ culpability does not derive from the importance of
their payments to Jaysh al-Mahdi’s operations, which is not the
focus of plaintiffs’ allegations. Cf. Taamneh, 598 U.S. at 505-
06. Rather, the allegations show that defendants, over a long
period of time, associated themselves with Jaysh al-Mahdi’s
violent campaign of terrorism against U.S. nationals in Iraq via
their provision of meaningful quantities of cash and cash-
equivalents to that terrorist organization.
We therefore conclude that plaintiffs have made a
particularly strong showing that defendants’ aid was
“substantial” and a strong showing that they knew how it was
being used. The complaint thus demonstrates that defendants
culpably associated themselves with Jaysh al-Mahdi’s attacks
on U.S. nationals, including the victims in this case.
In sum, we hold that plaintiffs have stated a secondary
liability claim under the ATA. Plaintiffs plausibly allege a
nexus between the assistance defendants provided to Jaysh al-
Mahdi and the subset of attacks Jaysh al-Mahdi committed
against U.S. nationals in Iraq between 2005 and 2009. We
recognize that the complaint does not directly trace individual
dollars or drugs to their eventual use in specific attacks. That
the nexus is somewhat indirect raises the bar for plaintiffs,
requiring them to reinforce their nexus allegations in order to
demonstrate defendants’ culpability. They needed to plead that
defendants’ kickbacks provided assistance that was substantial
and that defendants were aware of how that assistance was
being used. Plaintiffs meet that bar. They plausibly allege that
defendants knew Jaysh al-Mahdi used their assistance to carry
out further attacks against Americans, yet defendants continued

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to provide it. And plaintiffs plausibly allege that the
“substantial” scale and illegality of defendants’ assistance
supports an inference that defendants culpably associated
themselves with Jaysh al-Mahdi.
Plaintiffs will bear the burden at trial to prove all the
elements of liability. But at this preliminary stage, their
allegations and reasonable inferences drawn from them suffice
to state an ATA aiding-and-abetting claim based on
defendants’ “conscious, voluntary, and culpable participation
in [Jaysh Al-Mahdi’s] wrongdoing.” Taamneh, 598 U.S. at
493.
2.
Plaintiffs separately claim that defendants may be held
directly liable for acts of international terrorism that defendants
themselves committed. Those claims require allegations that
plaintiffs, as nationals of the United States, were “injured in
[their] person, property, or business by reason of an act of
international terrorism.” 18 U.S.C. § 2333(a). It is not
contested that plaintiffs are U.S. nationals. The parties instead
dispute whether plaintiffs adequately allege injury by reason of
acts of international terrorism—that is, whether defendants’
alleged financing, 18 U.S.C. § 2339C, and material support, 18
U.S.C. § 2339A, of Jaysh al-Mahdi was “international
terrorism” within the meaning of the ATA, 18 U.S.C.
§ 2331(1). And they dispute whether defendants’ conduct
proximately caused plaintiffs’ injuries. The district court
dismissed the claims for failure to plead proximate causation
without addressing what constitutes an “act of international
terrorism” under the statute. See 474 F. Supp. 3d at 209.
In our pre-Taamneh opinion, we held only that plaintiffs
adequately alleged the proximate causation required for direct
liability under the ATA and remanded for the district court to

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consider in the first instance whether plaintiffs alleged that
defendants themselves committed any acts of international
terrorism. Taamneh did not address the standard for direct
liability under the ATA. Defendants nonetheless renew their
argument that we should dismiss the claims “because
defendants’ alleged acts are too remote for aiding-and-abetting
liability” so they are, a fortiori, “too remote for direct liability.”
Appellees Br. 27-28. That reasoning fails in view of our
holding that plaintiffs have stated an aiding-and-abetting claim
under the ATA. As we did in our earlier opinion, we decline
here to determine in the first instance whether defendants
committed any “act[s] of international terrorism” within the
meaning of the ATA. Appellees Br. 28-31. Because Taamneh
does not speak to it, we go no further than to remand to the
district court for further consideration of plaintiffs’ direct
liability claims.
3.
In our original opinion, we also held that the manufacturer
defendants could be held liable both directly and secondarily
despite not dealing immediately with Jaysh al-Mahdi. We
reached that conclusion because reports demonstrating the
connection between the Ministry and Jaysh al-Mahdi were
available to all parties and because the complaint contained
sufficient allegations that suppliers acted as manufacturers’
agents. Defendants did not petition the Supreme Court for
review of that holding and Taamneh did not address the issue.
We therefore reinstate the claims against the defendant
manufacturers, again with recognition that this conclusion rests
on pleadings, untested by further factual development, and that
the district court may reach a different conclusion on
consideration of the evidence.

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B.
Finally, our earlier opinion held that U.S. federal courts
have constitutional authority to exercise specific personal
jurisdiction over certain foreign supplier defendants.
Defendants did not seek certiorari on that issue, and a court
“generally has no obligation to raise a question of personal
jurisdiction on its own.” Kaplan v. Cent. Bank of the Islamic
Republic of Iran, 896 F.3d 501, 511 (D.C. Cir. 2018). In any
event, although the Supreme Court has since reshaped the
relevant jurisdictional inquiry in Fuld v. Palestinian Liberation
Organization, 606 U.S. 1 (2025), it is unlikely that we would
reach a different conclusion were we to apply the “more
flexible jurisdictional inquiry” that Fuld prescribes, id. at 16.
We therefore reaffirm our holding that the district court may
exercise personal jurisdiction over defendants.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s
order of July 17, 2020 granting defendants’ motion to dismiss
for failure to state a claim and the foreign defendants’ motion
to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, as well as its
attendant dismissal of plaintiffs’ state-law claims. We remand
for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So ordered.

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