Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (Canada, 1985)

The Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act (FEMA) is Canada's blocking statute, assented to in December 1984 and in force from February 1985 (RSC 1985, c F-29), empowering the Attorney General to block compliance within Canada with extraterritorial measures of foreign states that adversely affect Canadian trade or commerce, to bar production of records for foreign tribunals, and to deny recognition to offending foreign judgments. It is the Canadian arm of the coordinated allied legal resistance to United States extraterritorial reach, and its most consequential use has been the protection of Canada-Cuba trade against the US embargo.

Provisions

FEMA authorises the Attorney General, where a foreign state's measures affect Canadian trade or commerce in a manner adverse to Canadian interests, to order persons in Canada not to comply with them; to prohibit or restrict the production of records and the giving of information to foreign tribunals; and to declare foreign judgments issued under such measures unenforceable in Canada. Amendments strengthened the machinery with clawback recovery against foreign multiple-damages awards. Breach of a blocking order is an offence, placing Canadian subsidiaries of US corporations under a direct domestic legal duty that contradicts instructions flowing from their parents' US obligations.

Trigger and procedure

The statute answered the same pressures that produced the Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980: US extraterritorial antitrust discovery and the 1982 pipeline crisis, in which Washington asserted jurisdiction over foreign subsidiaries of American firms. Canada's exposure was structural, given the depth of US ownership in Canadian industry: measures binding "US-controlled" companies reached much of the Canadian economy, making blocking legislation a matter of economic sovereignty rather than commercial convenience.

Employment history

The defining employments concern Cuba. In 1992, after the Cuban Democracy Act (1992) purported to bar US subsidiaries abroad from trading with Cuba, the Attorney General issued the Foreign Extraterritorial Measures (United States) Order, directing Canadian corporations, including US-owned subsidiaries, not to comply. The order was amended in early 1996 as the Helms-Burton Act (1996) advanced through Congress, and after its enactment FEMA itself was amended, with effect from 1 January 1997, to add the clawback and non-recognition provisions aimed squarely at Helms-Burton Title III liability. Canadian firms continued Cuba trade under the Act's cover, in parallel with the EU Blocking Statute (Regulation 2271/96) and Mexico's equivalent legislation.

Effects

FEMA demonstrates both the strength and the ceiling of the blocking response, treated conceptually at Blocking statutes. Within its jurisdiction it worked: the US embargo could not simply annex Canadian subsidiaries as enforcement agents, and Washington suspended the most provocative Helms-Burton litigation provisions rather than fight its neighbours' courts. But the instrument protects conduct, not access: it cannot shield a Canadian bank or exporter from loss of US market and dollar-clearing access, which is why blocking statutes have proved weaker against modern financial Secondary sanctions than against the trade measures of the 1980s and 1990s.

The Act remained in force on 30 July 2026. Its statutory powers are distinct from orders made under it, including SOR/92-584 and the 2014 order. A Canadian blocking direction can prohibit compliance, restrict evidence, deny recognition or support recovery, but it does not cancel the foreign law outside Canada.

See also

Blocking statutes · Protection of Trading Interests Act 1980 · EU Blocking Statute (Regulation 2271/96) · Helms-Burton Act (1996) · Cuban Democracy Act (1992) · United States embargo against Cuba (1960-present) · Extraterritoriality · Economic warfare · Economic statecraft

Sources

• Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, current HTML, accessed 30 July 2026.
• Foreign Extraterritorial Measures Act, current PDF, accessed 30 July 2026.
• Foreign Extraterritorial Measures (United States) Order, 1992, accessed 30 July 2026.
• Certain Foreign Extraterritorial Measures (United States) Order, 2014, accessed 30 July 2026.