480
Opinion of Breyer, J.
separation of powers. See id., at 749 ("We consider this immunity a functionally mandated incident of the President's unique office, rooted in the constitutional tradition of the separation of powers and supported by our history"). That rationale is not implicated by the statutory immunity Congress created for actions such as the one before us.
Any relationship recognized under the FSIA between the Dead Sea Companies and Israel had been severed before suit was commenced. As a result, the Dead Sea Companies would not be entitled to instrumentality status even if their theory that instrumentality status could be conferred on a subsidiary were accepted.
* * *
For these reasons, we hold first that a foreign state must itself own a majority of the shares of a corporation if the corporation is to be deemed an instrumentality of the state under the provisions of the FSIA; and we hold second that instrumentality status is determined at the time of the filing of the complaint.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals in No. 01-594 is affirmed, and the writ of certiorari in No. 01-593 is dismissed.
It is so ordered.
Justice Breyer, with whom Justice O'Connor joins, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join Parts I, II-A, and II-C, and dissent only from Part II-B, of the Court's opinion. Unlike the majority, I believe that the statutory phrase "other ownership interest . . . owned by a foreign state," 28 U. S. C. § 1603(b)(2), covers a Foreign Nation's legal interest in a Corporate Subsidiary, where that interest consists of the Foreign Nation's ownership of a Corporate Parent that owns the shares of the Subsidiary.
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