On June 1, 2022, Justice Cohen of the New York County Commercial Division issued a decision in Andes Petroleum Ecuador Ltd. v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 2022 NY Slip Op. 31751(U), looking to a plaintiff’s place of business, not its place of incorporation, in applying New York’s borrowing statute, explaining:
Under CPLR 202, when a nonresident sues on a cause of action accruing outside of New York, the claim must be timely under the limitations period of both New York and the jurisdiction where the action accrued. This prevents nonresidents from shopping in New York for a favorable Statute of Limitations.
Andes’s claims accrued in Ecuador, where its principal place of business is located. A cause of action accrues at the time and in the place of the injury. And when an alleged injury is purely economic, the place of injury usually is where the plaintiff resides and sustains the economic impact of the loss. For a corporate entity, the place of injury is often the principal place of business, since that is where the entity’s alleged monetary damages would be felt.
That Andes is a corporation organized under the laws of Barbados, without more, changes nothing. It is true, the place of injury does not always equate to a plaintiff’s principal place of business. Where there is no evidence that it has a principal place of business in any one state, for example, it is reasonable to designate the plaintiff’s residence as its state of incorporation. And it is also possible an economic injury is sustained not where the plaintiff resides, but where the plaintiff maintains a separate financial base. But none of those principles avail Andes here.
Besides alleging the fact of its incorporation there, Andes alleges no facts connecting its injury to Barbados. And Andes cites no case in which a plaintiff’s place of incorporation trumps its principal place of business, for purposes of CPLR 202, under such circumstances.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).