WASHINGTON — The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Friday revived an Iraq terrorism lawsuit against Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Roche and GE Healthcare, allowing claims by Americans injured in Iraq between 2005 and 2011 to proceed. The panel said the plaintiffs’ complaint plausibly alleges the companies provided cash bribes and medical goods that helped finance attacks and meets the standards for civil liability under the federal Anti-Terrorism Act, Jan. 23, 2026.
Iraq terrorism lawsuit heads back to district court
The unanimous decision in Joshua Atchley et al. v. AstraZeneca UK Limited et al. sends the case back to U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after the Supreme Court vacated an earlier ruling and ordered the appeals court to reconsider the claims in light of its 2023 opinion in Taamneh.
In the Iraq terrorism lawsuit, plaintiffs allege the companies secured contracts with Iraq’s Health Ministry by using local agents to deliver kickbacks and by supplying extra, off-the-books shipments of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment. The complaint says the Hezbollah-backed militia Jaysh al-Mahdi controlled the ministry and monetized the goods — including through black-market sales — to fund violence aimed at U.S. troops and civilians.
The D.C. Circuit said Twitter Inc. v. Taamneh requires “conscious, voluntary, and culpable” participation and a nexus between the assistance and the acts of international terrorism that caused the injuries. The panel concluded the allegations here, taken as true for now, describe conduct “far from business as usual” and are not comparable to the kind of passive, ordinary-course activity rejected in Taamneh.
The full opinion — written by Circuit Judge Cornelia T.L. Pillard and joined by Circuit Judge Richard Wilkins and Senior Circuit Judge Harry Edwards — is available in the court’s Jan. 23 ruling. The panel also reinstated its prior holding that the plaintiffs adequately pleaded proximate causation for direct liability under the Anti-Terrorism Act, and it left intact earlier rulings on personal jurisdiction over certain foreign defendants.
In a joint statement, the companies said they were disappointed by the ruling, said they “are not responsible in any way” for the violence carried out by Iraqi militia groups and said they are evaluating legal options, according to Reuters. Counsel for the plaintiffs did not immediately respond to a request for comment, Reuters reported.
A case with a long paper trail
The Iraq terrorism lawsuit was filed in 2017 and dismissed in 2020 before the D.C. Circuit revived it in early 2022 — a decision analyzed at the time by Lawfare and covered for the health-care industry by Fierce Pharma.
In June 2024, the Supreme Court vacated the 2022 appeals-court decision and told the D.C. Circuit to take another look after Taamneh, a move described in Reuters’ June 2024 report. The federal government had urged that step in a Justice Department filing that said the lower courts should reassess the complaint under Taamneh’s more demanding test.
For now, the Iraq terrorism lawsuit returns to the trial court for discovery and the next round of motions, renewing a closely watched test of how far terrorism civil liability can reach when companies are accused of bribery in a war zone.
