In W.S. Kirkpatrick & Co. v. Environmental Tectonics Corporation, Int'l, 493 U.S. 400 (1990), the petitioner was alleged to have bribed Nigerian officials to obtain a construction contract from the Nigerian government. Nigerian law prohibits the exchange of such bribes. The respondent argued that had the bribes not been given, it would have been awarded the contract and brought the action. The petitioner raised the act of state doctrine arguing that the claim required the court's review of the Nigerian government's act of awarding the contract to the petitioner and therefore should be dismissed because to prevail, the respondent had to prove the Nigerian government acted unlawfully when it awarded the contract. The court disagreed because act of state issues only arise when a case turns on the effect of official action by a foreign sovereign (Id at 406). The court found that in matter before it the legality of the Nigerian contract was "simply not something to be decided in the present suit, and there was no occasion to apply the rule of decision that the act of state doctrine requires (Id). Furthermore, act of state did not apply because the respondent was not "trying to undo or disregard the governmental action, but only to obtain damages from private parties who procured it" (Id at 407).