Cite as: 538 U. S. 468 (2003)
Opinion of Breyer, J.
broad jurisdiction in the Federal courts should be conducive to uniformity in decision, which is desirable since a disparate treatment of cases involving foreign governments may have adverse foreign relations consequences").
Most important for present purposes, the statute seeks to guarantee these protections to the foreign nation not only when it acts directly in its own name but also when it acts through separate legal entities, including corporations and other "organ[s]." 28 U. S. C. § 1603(b).
Given these purposes, what might lead Congress to grant protection to a Foreign Nation acting through a Corporate Parent but deny the same protection to the Foreign Nation acting through, for example, a wholly owned Corporate Subsidiary? The answer to this question is: In terms of the statute's purposes, nothing at all would lead Congress to make such a distinction.
As far as this statute is concerned, decisions about how to incorporate, how to structure corporate entities, or whether to act through a single corporate layer or through several corporate layers are matters purely of form, not of substance. Cf. H. R. Rep. No. 94-1487, at 15 (agencies or instrumentalities "could assume a variety of forms"); First Nat. City Bank v. Banco Para el Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U. S. 611, 625 (1983) (noting that "developing countries" often "establish separate juridical entities . . . to make large-scale national investments"). The need for federal-court determination of a sovereign immunity claim is no less important where subsidiaries are involved. The need for procedural protections is no less compelling. The risk of adverse foreign policy consequences is no less great. See ABA Working Group 523 ("The strength of a foreign state's sovereign interests . . . does not necessarily dissipate when it employs more complicated legal structures resembling those used by modern private businesses"); Dellapenna, Refining the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 9 Willamette J. Int'l L. & Disp. Resol. 57, 92-93 (2001). See also A. Kumar, The State
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