A federal judge in Miami has overturned verdicts amounting to almost $120 million against the Expedia Group and three other U.S. online travel firms.
This comes after Expedia, Orbitz and two Hotels.com entities were accused of trafficking confiscated property in Cuba. They were found liable earlier this year for violating the Cuban embargo.
The suit accused the companies of booking hotel stays on Cuban land that the communist regime had seized from a family there in the 1960s. But in an order filed Friday, Francisco Moreno, a senior judge at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, now ruled the jury was mistaken.
The companies, Moreno said, ceased the bookings once notified they were in violation, in accordance with the law.
Former Cuban property owners have been allowed to sue companies in the U.S. since 2019 under a provision of the Helms-Burton Law that was activated that year. This was the first such verdict rendered.
The judge's ruling is likely to be appealed.
READ MORE: Federal prosecutors say immigration services business 'a sham'. Smuggled thousands of Cubans to US
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