Expedia Cuban Land Lawsuit Explained

Expedia has been fighting a series of lawsuits accusing the travel company and its subsidiaries of profiting from Cuban property confiscated after Fidel Castro’s revolution. One of the most prominent cases was brought by Mario Echevarria, a U.S. citizen who says his family owned land on the Cuban island of Cayo Coco before the Cuban government seized it. Echevarria alleged that Expedia, Hotels.com and Orbitz violated the Helms-Burton Act by selling reservations at hotels later constructed on that property. A Miami federal jury initially awarded him $29.8 million in 2025, including treble damages, but the trial judge later overturned the verdict and entered judgment for the Expedia defendants. The dispute is part of a broader wave of litigation made possible after the Trump administration activated a long-dormant provision of the Helms-Burton Act in 2019.Mario Echevarria Says His Family Owned Cayo Coco

Mario Echevarria Claims An Inherited Interest In Cayo Coco, An Island Off Cuba’s Northern Coast. His lawsuit says members of his family owned the property before the Cuban government confiscated it following the revolution. [Court Records]

Echevarria Became A U.S. Citizen In 1983. He says he later inherited his family’s claim to the confiscated property. [Court Records]

The Litigation Required The Court To Examine A Long Chain Of Family Ownership Under Cuban Law. The parties submitted competing evidence and expert testimony concerning transfers of the property through successive generations. [Court Records] [Chambers]

Cuba Confiscates The Property

Echevarria Says The Cuban Government Confiscated The Family Property After The Revolution. Court records describe Cayo Coco property at issue as having been nationalized under Cuban land-reform measures. [Court Records]

Cayo Coco Was Later Developed Into A Major Tourism Destination. Resorts and other tourism infrastructure were constructed on the island.

Hotels Built On The Disputed Land

Echevarria’s Litigation Focused On Three Hotels. They included the Iberostar Mojito, Iberostar Colonial and Pullman Cayo Coco. [Court Records]

He Alleged That Those Hotels Operate On Property His Family Previously Owned. The lawsuit did not accuse Expedia of confiscating or constructing the hotels itself.

Instead, Echevarria Accused Expedia Companies Of Profiting From The Property By Selling Hotel Reservations. [Court Records]

The Lawsuit Uses The Helms-Burton Act

Echevarria Sued Under Title III Of The Cuban Liberty And Democratic Solidarity Act Of 1996, Better Known As The Helms-Burton Act. [Court Records]

Title III Allows Certain U.S. Nationals With Claims To Confiscated Cuban Property To Sue People Or Companies That “Traffic” In That Property. [Reuters]

The Law Defines Trafficking Broadly Enough To Include Some Commercial Use Or Economic Benefit Derived From Confiscated Property. The precise application of that definition has become the subject of extensive federal litigation.

Title III Was Suspended For More Than Two Decades

Although Helms-Burton Became Law In 1996, Presidents Repeatedly Suspended The Private Lawsuit Provision. That prevented property claimants from filing Title III damages actions for many years. [Reuters]

The Trump Administration Allowed Title III To Take Effect In 2019. The decision opened the door to lawsuits against companies accused of benefiting from Cuban property confiscated after the revolution. [Reuters]

Travel Companies And Cruise Lines Became Major Targets. Plaintiffs sued businesses that booked hotel rooms, docked ships or otherwise conducted commercial activity on disputed Cuban property.

Expedia Is Accused Of “Trafficking”

Echevarria Said Expedia And Its Related Companies Offered Reservations At Hotels Built On His Family’s former property. [Court Records]

The defendants included Expedia Group, Hotels.com entities and Orbitz. [Court Records]

Echevarria argued that commissions and other revenue generated from those bookings constituted economic benefit from confiscated property. That was the basis for his Helms-Burton claim.

Expedia Challenges Echevarria’s Ownership

Expedia disputed whether Echevarria could establish a valid ownership claim to Cayo Coco. The defendants challenged the documentation and succession history used to connect Echevarria to the property. [Court Records]

Determining ownership required the federal court to consider Cuban property and inheritance law. Judge Federico Moreno received competing expert testimony concerning whether Echevarria’s ancestors owned the island and whether that interest legally passed to him. [Chambers]

Expedia Also Disputes Knowledge Of The Property Claim

Helms-Burton Requires More Than Proof That A Company Conducted Business On Confiscated Property. Liability also depends on whether the alleged trafficking was knowing and intentional.

Expedia argued that its companies did not have the required knowledge that Echevarria held a valid claim when reservations were sold. [Court Records]

That knowledge requirement later became decisive after an Eleventh Circuit ruling in a separate Helms-Burton case. [Chambers]

Federal Judge Allows The Case To Reach Trial

Judge Moreno Denied Expedia’s March 2025 Request For Summary Judgment. He ruled that disputed factual and Cuban-law questions required resolution at trial rather than dismissal before a jury could hear the case. [Court Records]

The ruling addressed questions involving ownership, inheritance, knowledge and damages. [Court Records]

Jury Awards Echevarria $29.8 Million

The case became the first Helms-Burton claim to reach a jury trial. After a two-week trial in Miami, jurors found in Echevarria’s favor against four Expedia defendants. [Chambers]

The jury awarded approximately $29.8 million against each defendant, including statutory treble damages. [Chambers]

Because four Expedia-related defendants were involved, the combined potential judgments totaled approximately $119.4 million. [Miami-Dade Report]

Judge Overturns The Jury Verdict

Judge Moreno later set aside the jury’s verdict. He entered judgment as a matter of law for the Expedia defendants. [Chambers]

The decision eliminated the $29.8 million judgments returned by the jury. [Chambers]

Expedia Group Was Treated Separately From Its Subsidiaries

The Judge Ruled That Expedia Group Could Not Automatically Be Held Responsible For Activities Conducted By Separate Corporate Subsidiaries. [Chambers]

Evidence showed that Expedia Group was a holding company. The actual reservation activities were associated with subsidiaries and related operating companies.

The court found that evidence involving Expedia Group’s Cuba-related corporate activity was not sufficient to establish that the holding company itself had trafficked in Echevarria’s property. [Chambers]

An Appeals Court Ruling Changes The Knowledge Standard

The post-trial decision came after the Eleventh Circuit issued an important ruling in Del Valle v. Trivago. [Chambers]

The appeals court said “knowing and intentional” trafficking requires information creating a substantial or high likelihood that the claimant actually owns the property claim. [Chambers]

Judge Moreno concluded that Hotels.com and Orbitz did not satisfy that standard. The evidence did not demonstrate the level of knowledge required before the relevant booking activity occurred. [Chambers]

Expedia Faced Several Separate Cuban Property Cases

Echevarria’s Cayo Coco litigation is only one of several Helms-Burton cases involving Expedia.

Diego Trinidad sued Expedia over property in Varadero. Trinidad said his parents had owned beachfront property later used for hotel operations and alleged Expedia companies trafficked in it by marketing hotel reservations. [Court Records]

Judge Moreno granted summary judgment to Expedia in the Trinidad case in October 2024. He found the evidence insufficient to connect the hotel activity to the specific property claimed by Trinidad. [Court Records]

Central Santa Lucia Also Sues Expedia

Central Santa Lucia, L.C. filed another Helms-Burton lawsuit against Expedia in Delaware. The company claims rights involving Cuban property allegedly confiscated by the Cuban government. [Court Records]

That litigation developed into a dispute over whether documents establishing the plaintiff’s ownership claim were genuine and timely executed. Expedia alleges that assignment documents relied upon by Central Santa Lucia were created, backdated or executed after the statutory March 12, 1996 deadline. [Court Records]

The court separated that ownership issue from the remaining litigation. [Court Records]

Helms-Burton Can Triple Damages

The Act Can Produce Extremely Large Awards Because Successful plaintiffs may receive treble damages in qualifying cases. That means a court can multiply certain calculated damages by three.

The damages dispute in Echevarria’s case included whether property valuation should cover only the underlying land or also the hotels and other improvements constructed after confiscation. [Chambers]

The court heard expert testimony attempting to estimate the present-day value of property in Cuba despite the island’s unusual economic system and limited market data. [Chambers]

Supreme Court Takes Up The Broader Cuban Property Fight

The U.S. Supreme Court has also been addressing major questions involving Helms-Burton litigation. In 2026 the Court heard cases involving ExxonMobil and Havana Docks that could affect the broader legal landscape for confiscated-property claims. [Reuters]

The Exxon case involved assets confiscated from the oil company after the Cuban Revolution. Exxon has sought more than $1 billion in compensation from Cuban state-owned entities. [Reuters]

In June 2026 the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that foreign sovereign immunity did not bar Exxon’s Helms-Burton claim against a Cuban government company. [Reuters]

Cruise Lines Have Faced Similar Claims

Havana Docks Corporation sued major cruise companies for using terminal facilities at the Port of Havana. The company held a concession covering parts of the port before the Castro government confiscated its interest. [Chambers]

The cruise-line cases, like the Expedia litigation, involve claims that ordinary tourism businesses derived revenue from confiscated Cuban property. [Reuters]

The Expedia Case Became A Test Of Helms-Burton

Echevarria’s lawsuit became particularly significant because it was the first Title III case to proceed through a full jury trial. [Chambers]

The case forced a federal court to address ownership under pre-revolutionary Cuban law, corporate relationships inside Expedia, the knowledge required for trafficking liability and the valuation of confiscated property. [Chambers]

The jury’s initial $29.8 million verdict and the judge’s subsequent decision to overturn it illustrate how unsettled Helms-Burton litigation remains more than 25 years after Congress enacted the law. [Chambers]