April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Whether suing a crooked contractor or a multinational corporation wealthy enough to keep appealing, many a plaintiff never sees that hard-won judgment move from a number on a court order into a bank deposit.

Among such plaintiffs are hundreds of Americans who sued rogue countries responsible for terrorizing them or killing people they loved.

These are men and women who have been kidnapped, held captive, tortured or maimed, or whose child, parent, husband or wife was blown apart by a suicide bomber or an exploding airplane carrying a bomb.

The families of 241 Americans killed in the 1988 bombing of a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, last year won a $2.6 billion judgment against Iran. In January a judge in Washington awarded $6 billion against Libya because of the 1989 bombing of a French aircraft in which 170 people were killed, including seven Americans.

Ah, but how to collect?

You might think that plaintiffs in these kinds of cases would get a hand from the White House, the State Department or the Department of Justice. They became victims at the hands of terrorists, agents of countries we had listed as sponsors of terrorism. We are a nation determined to do battle with such forces, are we not?

We are when it comes to waging war or easing up on laws or the Constitution to facilitate spying or more physical forms of information gathering.

But when it comes to forcing countries to pay for what their terrorists did to innocent Americans, not so much.

Seeking Exemption

At the moment, the Bush administration is asking Congress to exempt Libya from a four-month-old law passed to help victims of terrorism collect court judgments from the nations that sponsored the attacks. The law applies to Libya, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Syria and Sudan.

It says plaintiffs with court judgments against any of those nations can seize whatever assets the country has in the U.S., or money the country pays U.S. companies that do business with it. Usually, it's hard to find either, given that these are nations that have been under economic sanctions for years.

But as Libya has instituted reforms and moved away from its terrorist past, international and U.S. sanctions have lifted and U.S. companies have shaken hands with Libya.

Now those corporations, mostly oil companies, are getting notices from plaintiffs' lawyers that U.S. victims of Libyan- sponsored terrorism want the money Libya owes them, and the company's money would do just fine.

Out From Under

ConocoPhillips, Hess Corp., Occidental Petroleum Corp. and Marathon Oil Corp., according to the New York Times, supported by their brethren at Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp. and Dow Chemical Co., have been sending their best lobbyists to Congress and administration offices to get them out from under this law. So has Libya.

It takes an act of Congress to exempt U.S. oil companies from the amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, passed in January.

A letter signed by the secretaries of state, defense, commerce and energy last month urged Congress to act, or else risk a ``chilling effect on potentially billions of dollars in investments by U.S. companies in Libya's oil sector,'' according to the Times.

``I don't know how we expect we could possibly be viewed seriously when we say that we are fighting to stop terrorism,'' says Thomas Fay, a Washington lawyer representing victims in the 1986 bombing of a West Berlin disco frequented by U.S. servicemen and women.

Paying Debts

So far, Congress isn't letting Libya off the hook. And it isn't likely to, not until Libya pays its debt to the victims of the terror it sponsored back in the old days.

Senator Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat who sponsored the new law with Republican Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, has made it clear he intends to see Libya's American victims compensated. Until that happens, he is blocking confirmation of Bush's nominee for ambassador to Libya, funds for a new embassy in Tripoli and the removal of Libya's name from the new law.

It isn't only to protect U.S. business interests that the administration is taking this stance. Like previous administrations, it would rather use whatever judgments are out there and whatever assets it can locate as bargaining chips for diplomatic concessions.

Those who govern sovereign states see a threat to one country's sovereign immunity as a potential threat to their own.

Timing Is Wrong

While Fay sees this administration as a hindrance to collecting for his clients, another lawyer, Stuart Newberger, points out that the administration persuaded Libya to agree to take responsibility for its past and respect court orders in terrorism cases to be removed from the U.S. list of nations that sponsor terrorism.

``When you blow up airplanes and kill people, you're going to be held accountable, and it's going to be expensive to resolve,'' says Newberger, a Washington partner in Crowell & Moring, who won the $6 billion judgment against Libya, which is appealing it.

What is wrong with the administration's approach is the timing. Yes, Libya should get credit for renouncing its horrific past and agreeing to make amends. But you don't take the pressure off by amending the law until amends are made.

Faced with that pressure, Libya seems to be on the verge of agreeing to a comprehensive settlement of all the cases against it, says James Kreindler, lead lawyer for families of Pan Am flight 103 victims, killed over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988. Libyan and U.S. officials have been talking, and Kreindler was briefed.

If that settlement happens, only then should Congress consider taking Libya off the hook and out of the law. And if the oil companies want to be rid of any liability, they should be pressing Libya to make good on its promises, not Congress to relieve Libya of the responsibility.

(Ann Woolner is a Bloomberg news columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Ann Woolner in Atlanta at awoolner@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: April 25, 2008 09:34 EDT