The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday, November 9, asked the Trump administration for its views on an appeal by some of the world's biggest pharmaceutical and medical-device companies, which are trying to stop a lawsuit accusing them of helping to finance terrorist attacks in Iraq. The justices directed their request to Solicitor General D. John Sauer, the administration's top Supreme Court lawyer — a step, known as a call for the views of the solicitor general, that the Court takes when it wants the federal government's position before deciding whether to hear a case.
Source: Bloomberg via Claims Journal, Nov. 10, 2026
The case is AstraZeneca UK v. Atchley, No. 26-245. The lawsuit names units of AstraZeneca Plc, Roche Holding Ltd., GE HealthCare Technologies Inc., Johnson & Johnson, Pfizer Inc. and Viatris Inc. It was brought by U.S. service members and civilians who served in Iraq, and by their families, who say the companies paid millions of dollars in bribes to secure medical-supply contracts with Iraq's Ministry of Health between 2004 and 2013 — money the victims say went to Jaysh al-Mahdi, the militant group that controlled the ministry.
Source: Bloomberg via CNBC-TV18, Nov. 9, 2026
What the victims allege
The allegations, set out in the plaintiffs' complaint and summarised by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, are detailed. Jaysh al-Mahdi — the armed wing of the Sadrist movement in Iraq — openly controlled the Ministry of Health, the appeals court wrote, and used it as a vehicle to direct attacks against Americans. The victims allege the companies paid illegal cash bribes, called 'commissions' and typically 20 percent of a contract's price, and also supplied extra, off-the-books batches of valuable medicines and medical goods that the group sold on the black market to fund its operations. Contracts were finalised at in-person meetings inside the ministry, where, the complaint says, displays of the group's weapons, fighters and propaganda made clear who was in charge.
Source: Atchley v. AstraZeneca UK Ltd., D.C. Circuit opinion, Jan. 23, 2026 (via Justia)
According to the appeals court, Sadrist control of the ministry and of Kimadia, Iraq's state-owned medical importer, was at its height from late 2004 through 2008, and the group kept de facto control of the ministry's contracting process until at least 2013. The complaint says that at the height of that control the ministry employed an estimated 70,000 Jaysh al-Mahdi members, that the group converted public hospitals into bases, and that some U.S. personnel in Iraq nicknamed its fighters 'the Pill Army' because they were sometimes paid in drugs they consumed or sold. The complaint details hundreds of attacks between 2005 and 2009 that killed or permanently maimed the victims in the case. These are allegations the plaintiffs must still prove; no court has found the companies liable.
Everything the lawsuit claims about bribes and financing is an allegation. The appeals court decided only that the complaint, if its facts are taken as true at this early stage, states claims that can proceed under the Anti-Terrorism Act. The companies deny the suit should be allowed at all, and no trial has been held.
What the companies say
The companies told the Supreme Court that they contracted with the ministry at the encouragement of the U.S. government. They argue that, even if the allegations were true, they are not sufficient to let a lawsuit go forward under the U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act: the suit, they say, does not allege a close enough connection between their transactions with the ministry and specific acts of terrorism, and the law requires a showing that a defendant intended to help a terror attack succeed. The victims answer that the companies knew their bribes financed attacks and kept paying for years, and they urged the justices to reject the appeal without a hearing.
A case the Supreme Court has already sent back once
This is the second time the fight has reached the justices. The lawsuit was first filed in October 2017. A federal district court in Washington dismissed it, but the D.C. Circuit reversed that dismissal. The Supreme Court then decided Twitter, Inc. v. Taamneh in 2023, ruling unanimously that the Anti-Terrorism Act could not be used to hold social-media companies responsible for a 2017 shooting at an Istanbul nightclub, and setting the modern test for aiding-and-abetting liability: a defendant must have consciously, voluntarily and culpably participated in the wrongful act, with a real connection between its help and the attacks. In June 2024, after also asking the solicitor general for the government's views, the Supreme Court vacated the Atchley ruling and sent the case back to be reconsidered under Taamneh.
On January 23, 2026, the D.C. Circuit ruled again that the suit can proceed: the complaint, it said, describes conduct 'far from business as usual,' alleging the companies repeatedly structured transactions in an unusual and unlawful way that facilitated Jaysh al-Mahdi's activities, and it reinstated the victims' direct-liability claims as well. The full appeals court declined to rehear the case in April 2026, and the companies filed their new Supreme Court petition, which is the appeal the justices acted on Monday. Both sides say the reasoning of the 2023 Taamneh decision supports their position.
Why the outcome matters
The case will help draw the legal line for every American and multinational company that does business with governments or ministries in conflict zones: ordinary commerce on one side, knowingly financing a terrorist group on the other. For the veterans and families who brought the suit, it is a nearly decade-old effort to hold deep-pocketed companies financially responsible for attacks in Iraq. And because the Court has now asked for the administration's views, the Trump administration will have to state a public position on how far the Anti-Terrorism Act reaches — a position that could shape not only this case but other terrorism-financing suits working through U.S. courts.
What happens next
The solicitor general's office will now prepare and file a brief giving the government's recommendation on whether the justices should hear the appeal. No deadline for that brief was announced in Monday's order. Once the brief is filed, the justices will decide whether to grant review; if they do, the case would be argued and decided in a later term, and if they refuse, the D.C. Circuit's January ruling stands and the lawsuit returns to the district court in Washington to move toward discovery and a possible trial. The Supreme Court's Monday action decides nothing about the companies' guilt or innocence — it only opens the door to the possibility that the justices will take the case.