Expedia Prevails in Helms-Burton Trial as Cuban Exile Families Fail to Prove Property Ownership

The travel booking giant Expedia Group secured a major legal victory in a Miami federal court on Monday, defeating claims by two Cuban Americans who alleged the company profited from hotels and land confiscated from their families by the Cuban government.

The plaintiffs sought to leverage the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 U.S. law that allows Cuban-American citizens to sue companies that “traffic” in property confiscated by the Cuban regime. The plaintiffs argued that Expedia engaged in unlawful trafficking by facilitating bookings at five hotels located on land seized after the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

However, the jury ultimately ruled in favor of Expedia, concluding that the plaintiffs lacked concrete, legally sufficient documentation to prove ownership or official confiscation records for the properties in question.

While Expedia did not immediately comment on the verdict, the company had maintained that its operations in Cuba were conducted under authorized travel licenses issued during the Obama administration. The company ceased all bookings in Cuba in April of the previous year following the Trump administration’s reversal of the opening policy. The jury did not address the licensing question, as the lack of proof of ownership rendered the other legal arguments moot.

This latest trial marks the second significant legal victory for Expedia in a case linked to Cuba. Last year, the company successfully defeated a lawsuit seeking more than $1.7 billion in damages related to hotel bookings on land formerly owned by the Sanchez Hill family.

The trial highlighted a profound clash between the moral indignation of Cuban American families seeking restitution for lost heritage and the defense of legally compliant commerce during a period of shifting U.S. foreign policy. David Shank, a lawyer representing Expedia, urged the jury to look past the political context, stating, “This case is not about what the right policy in Cuba is.”

Expedia’s legal team argued that the company did not knowingly and intentionally traffic in confiscated property, noting that the company ceased its business relationship with the hotels as soon as it was made aware of the claims by the Echevarria and Mata families.

The plaintiffs presented emotionally charged testimonies to support their claims of inherited ownership. Maricela Mata, 66, who sought $1.5 million, presented faded documents purporting to show ownership dating back to her grandfather Antonio Mata, who built the San Carlos hotel in Cienfuegos in 1928. The defense successfully argued that these documents were merely commercial business registries rather than property deeds, failing to establish ownership of the land itself.

The other plaintiff, Mario Echevarria, 91, sought $10 million, claiming his family owned Cayo Coco, a large 143-square-mile island off Cuba’s northern coast developed as an all-inclusive resort in the 1990s. Expedia’s lawyers successfully cast doubt on the lineage of the heirs, asking the jury, “Who owns it? I have no idea. It’s up to you.” Notably, Echevarria previously secured a nearly $30 million verdict in a separate case in 2025, which was later set aside by a judge who ruled Expedia could not be held liable for its subsidiaries’ actions. That case is currently under appeal.

Legal experts suggest that this verdict should not deter other Cuban Americans from pursuing justice. John Kavulich, an expert at the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, noted that dozens of similar claims are currently in motion, with two cases already headed to the Supreme Court.

According to Paolo Spadoni, a political economist at Augusta University who studies Cuba’s tourism industry, the core obstacle for plaintiffs is not proving that companies like Expedia benefited economically from expropriated assets. Instead, he noted, “the more fundamental challenge is establishing that they possess legally cognizable property rights in the assets at issue,” a high historical and legal bar that the latest verdict has underscored.

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