Earlier this week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a decision in In re: South African Apartheid Litigation dismissing claims brought pursuant to the Alien Tort Statute (“ATS”) against Ford and IBM. Plaintiffs had alleged that the companies aided and abetted tortious conduct by South Africa’s apartheid regime. The Court observed that the “focus” of the necessary inquiry as to whether plaintiffs’ claims properly “touch and concern” the United States is “the nature and location of the conduct constituting the alleged offenses under the law of nations.”