Cite as: 538 U. S. 468 (2003)
Syllabus
§ 1603(b)(2). Only direct ownership satisfies the statutory requirement. In issues of corporate law structure often matters. The statutory reference to ownership of "shares" shows that Congress intended coverage to turn on formal corporate ownership. As a corporation and its shareholders are distinct entities, see, e. g., First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U. S. 611, 625, a corporate parent which owns a subsidiary's shares does not, for that reason alone, own or have legal title to the subsidiary's assets; and, it follows with even greater force, the parent does not own or have legal title to the subsidiary's subsidiaries. The veil separating corporations and their shareholders may be pierced in certain exceptional circumstances, but the Dead Sea Companies refer to no authority for extending the doctrine so far that, as a categorical matter, all subsidiaries are deemed to be the same as the parent corporation. Various federal statutes refer to "direct or indirect ownership." The absence of this language in § 1603(b) instructs the Court that Congress did not intend to disregard structural ownership rules here. That section's "other ownership interest" phrase, when following the word "shares," should be interpreted to refer to a type of interest other than stock ownership. Reading the phrase to refer to a state's interest in entities further down the corporate ladder would make the specific reference to "shares" redundant. The fact that Israel exercised considerable control over the companies may not be substituted for an ownership interest, since control and ownership are distinct concepts, and it is majority ownership by a foreign state, not control, that is the benchmark of instrumentality status. Pp. 473-478.
3. Instrumentality status is determined at the time of the filing of the complaint. Construing § 1603(b)(2) so that the present tense in the provision "a majority of whose shares . . . is owned by a foreign state" has real significance is consistent with the longstanding principle that the Court's jurisdiction depends upon the state of things at the time the action is brought. E. g., Keene Corp. v. United States, 508 U. S. 200, 207. The Dead Sea Companies' attempt to compare foreign sovereign immunity with other immunities that are based on a government officer's status at the time of the conduct giving rise to the suit is inapt because the reason for those other immunities does not apply here. Unlike those immunities, foreign sovereign immunity is not meant to avoid chilling foreign states or their instrumentalities in the conduct of their business but to give them some protection from the inconvenience of suit as a gesture of comity, Verlinden B. V. v. Central Bank of Nigeria, 461 U. S. 480, 486. Because any relationship recognized under the FSIA between the Dead Sea Companies and Israel had been severed before suit was commenced, the companies would not be entitled to in-
469
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