MEMORANDUM OPINION
ROSEMARY M. COLLYER UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
Frank
Thomas Pescatore, Jr., was kidnapped in 1996, held for
ransom, and ultimately killed by the Fuerzas Armadas
Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC). Members of the Pescatore
family (Plaintiffs) sued FARC and senior FARC commander
Juvenal Ovidio Ricardo Palmera Pineda under the Antiterrorism
Act, 18 U.S.C. § 2333 et seq., and this Court
granted default judgment and damages. Plaintiffs now seek to
enforce the Court's Order for damages against Samark Jose
Lopez Bello and his company, the Yakima Trading Corporation,
as agents or instrumentalities of FARC. Mr. Lopez and Yakima,
neither of which was a party to the underlying lawsuit, move
to intervene so that they may defend themselves against
execution of the judgment order. Because Mr. Lopez and Yakima
are entitled to an opportunity to defend their interests in
this action, the Court will grant their motion to intervene.
I.
BACKGROUND
In
November 2018, after ten years of litigation both here and as
part of a multi-district case in Florida, see Stansell v.
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia, 771 F.3d 713
(11th Cir. 2014), Plaintiffs secured from this Court an Order
of default judgment against Mr. Pineda and FARC totaling $69
million. See Pescatore v. Pineda, 345 F.Supp.3d 68
(D.D.C. 2018). Section 201(a) of the Terrorism Risk Insurance
Act (TRIA), 28 U.S.C. § 1610 et seq., allows
Plaintiffs to satisfy this judgment against “blocked
assets” of “agents or instrumentalities” of
FARC. See Stansell, 771 F.3d at 722-23. Assets are
blocked when the United States Department of Treasury Office
of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designates their owner a
Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker (SDNT). However, it
is up to the courts to determine whether a person is an agent
or instrumentality of FARC. Id. at 726-27
(“Before a writ of garnishment or execution pursuant to
TRIA § 201 issues, a district court must determine that
the property owner is . . . an agency or instrumentality of
the judgment debtor terrorist party.”).
OFAC
has designated Mr. Lopez and Yakima (together, Intervenors)
SDNTs. See Opp'n, Ex. 1, Treasury Sanctions
Prominent Venezuelan Drug Trafficker Tareck El Aissami and
His Primary Frontman Samark Lopez Bello [Dkt. 79-1]. Based on
this, and without a court finding that Intervenors are agents
or instrumentalities of FARC, Plaintiffs sent writs of
attachment to several banks attempting to seize
Intervenors' assets, copies of which were also mailed to
properties owned by Mr. Lopez and Yakima but blocked by OFAC.
See Pls.' Mot. to Enforce Their Judgment Against
the Blocked Assets of FARC and FARC's Agencies and
Instrumentalities (Motion to Enforce) [Dkt. 68] at 3.
Co-plaintiffs from the Stanell litigation
(Stansell Plaintiffs) moved to dismiss these writs,
protesting that Plaintiffs were attempting to gain lien
priority on those assets improperly by skipping this crucial
finding. On January 18, 2019, Plaintiffs responded by moving
this Court to find that Mr. Lopez and Yakima are agents or
instrumentalities of FARC. See Motion to Enforce.
Meanwhile,
on January 22, 2019, the Stansell Plaintiffs-who
have moved another court in this district to find Mr. Lopez
and Yakima are, along with others, agents or
instrumentalities of FARC-emailed a copy of their motion to
dismiss to Mr. Lopez's counsel. See Mot., Ex. 2,
Decl. of Jeffrey M. Kolansky in Supp. of Mot. to Intervene
[Dkt. 77-2] ¶ 3. Mr. Lopez and Yakima moved to intervene
in this case on February 11, 2019. Plaintiffs
oppose.[1]
II.
LEGAL STANDARD
A party
may intervene in an action as of right when that party
“claims an interest relating to the property or
transaction that is the subject of the action, and is so
situated that disposing of the action may as a practical
matter impair or impede the movant's ability to protect
its interest, unless existing parties adequately represent
that interest.” Fed.R.Civ.P. 24(a)(2). The D.C. Circuit
has “identified four prerequisites to intervene as of
right: (1) the application to intervene must be timely; (2)
the applicant must demonstrate a legally protected interest
in the action; (3) the action must threaten to impair that
interest; and (4) no party to the action can be an adequate
representative of applicant's interests.”
Karsner v. Lothian, 532 F.3d 876, 885 (internal
cites and quotes omitted).
III.
ANALYSIS
Plaintiffs
contest only the first two factors: timeliness and the
interest at stake.
A.
Timeliness
Timeliness
“is to be judged in consideration of all the
circumstances, especially weighing the factors of time
elapsed since the inception of the suit, the purpose for
which intervention is sought, the need for intervention as a
means of preserving the applicant's rights, and the
probability of prejudice to those already parties in the
case.” Id. at 886 (internal cites and quotes
omitted). Timeliness depends on when the movant “knew
or should have known that any of its rights would be directly
affected by this litigation.” Nat'l Wildlife
Fed'n v. Burford, 878 F.2d 422, 434 (D.C. Cir.
1989). That said, “[t]he most important consideration
in deciding whether a motion for intervention is untimely is
whether the delay in moving for intervention will prejudice
the existing parties to the case.” 7C Charles Alan
Wright & Arthur R. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure
§ 1916 (2019). “Since in situations in which
intervention is of right the would-be intervenor may be
seriously harmed if intervention is denied, courts should be
reluctant to dismiss such a request as untimely.”
Id.
Although
Plaintiffs have been litigating this case for almost a
decade, at no point had Plaintiffs named or otherwise
referred to Mr. Lopez or Yakima until now; Plaintiffs'
case against Mr. Lopez and Yakima is new and Plaintiffs do
not explain why Intervenors should bear the consequences of
Plaintiffs' extended litigation in this Court and in
Florida. Plaintiffs argue that the motion to intervene should
have been filed earlier, after Plaintiffs mailed copies of
their writs to Mr. Lopez's OFAC-blocked addresses on
December 24, 2018. However, Intervenors note that, because
those addresses were blocked, Mr. Lopez could not reside
there and so could not receive notice-which Plaintiffs should
have known. Reply at 3. More to the point, even if
Intervenors were aware of their interest in this case by the
end of 2018, Plaintiffs do not explain why a few weeks'
delay should be dispositive, especially since Plaintiffs did
not file to enforce their writs until mid-January 2019.
Certainly, this case has withstood longer delays. See,
e.g., 8/10/2010 Order to Show Cause; 10/5/2009 Order to
Show Cause.
Most
importantly, Plaintiffs do not explain how they will be
prejudiced if the Court grants intervention. Although
Plaintiffs fear Intervenors mean to “reopen the
underlying case that Plaintiffs have spent over a decade
litigating, ” Opp'n at 7, this fear is without
basis since Intervenors explicitly state that their
intervention will “not affect the underlying judgment
against ...