The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently dismissed a long-running dispute against Russia concerning the library of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (the Library), a collection of books and papers once held by the...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled on January 9, 2024 that the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation in Madrid is the owner of Rue Saint–Honoré, après-midi, effect de pluie (1892) by Camille Pissarro, a...more
1/15/2024
/ Appeals ,
Art ,
Art Collections ,
Art Sales ,
CA Supreme Court ,
California ,
Choice-of-Law ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Spain
Today I am pleased to announce that I have filed a brief in the Supreme Court of the United States as counsel of record for amicus curiae Mark B. Feldman, former U.S. Department of State Acting Legal Adviser. We filed the...more
We were privileged to file today a petition for certiorari with the Supreme Court of the United States on behalf of our client, art dealer Alexander Khochinsky. The petition asks the Court for reinstatement of a lawsuit...more
11/8/2021
/ Art Dealers ,
Due Process ,
Extradition ,
Fine Art ,
First Amendment ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Foreign Sovereigns ,
International Litigation ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Poland ,
Restitution ,
Retaliatory Arrests ,
SCOTUS
Last week, on behalf of our client Alexander Khochinsky, an art dealer, we filed a petition to rehear en banc the June 18, 2021 decision by a three-judge panel affirming the dismissal of the lawsuit against Poland for lack of...more
(WASHINGTON-October 22, 2020) The heirs to the Jewish art dealers who were forced to sell the medieval devotional art collection known as the Welfenschatz (in English, the Guelph Treasure) to agents of Hermann Goering in 1935...more
10/23/2020
/ Art Collections ,
Comity ,
Expropriation ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Germany ,
Heritage & Culture ,
Jurisdiction ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Petition for Writ of Certiorari ,
Restitution ,
Sovereign Immunity ,
Takings Clause
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit yesterday affirmed the 2019 judgment that allowed the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Museum in Madrid to retain Camille Pissarro’s Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, effet de pluie (Rue...more
8/20/2020
/ Adverse Possession ,
Appellate Courts ,
Art ,
Art Collections ,
Cultural Artifacts ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Relations ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Germany ,
International Litigation ,
Museums ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Personal Property ,
Restitution ,
Spain ,
Standard of Review
(WASHINGTON-July 2, 2020) The United States Supreme Court today agreed to hear the appeal by Germany and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (SPK) seeking to dismiss the restitution claim by the heirs to the so-called...more
7/2/2020
/ Comity ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Germany ,
International Litigation ,
Jurisdiction ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Restitution ,
Stolen Goods ,
War Crimes
On behalf of my clients seeking restitution of the Guelph Treasure, or Welfenschatz, we filed today our supplemental brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in response to the Brief of the United States as Amicus Curiae that the...more
Late Tuesday evening—the day after Memorial Day no less—the United States Office of the Solicitor General filed a brief amicus curiae in our clients’ pending case against the Federal Republic of Germany and the Stiftung...more
6/3/2020
/ FCEJCA ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Germany ,
International Litigation ,
Jurisdiction ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Restitution ,
Stolen Goods ,
War Crimes
My client Alexander Khochinsky is safely back in the United States after an eight-month ordeal spurred by Poland’s retaliation for his assertion of restitution for his mother’s property lost in Poland during the Holocaust....more
10/22/2019
/ Bad Faith ,
Criminal Prosecution ,
Extradition ,
Extraterritoriality Rules ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Foreign Sovereigns ,
International Litigation ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Poland ,
Popular ,
Probable Cause ,
Restitution ,
Retaliatory Arrests ,
Stolen Goods
The Appellate Division First Department in New York has affirmed the trial court’s ruling in Reif v. Nagy that the heirs of Viennese actor and Holocaust victim Franz Friedrich (Fritz) Grünbaum are entitled to the return of...more
7/12/2019
/ Appeals ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Germany ,
Good Faith ,
HEAR Act ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Paintings Sculptures and Engravings ,
Power of Attorney ,
Restitution ,
Statute of Limitations ,
Successors
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today dismissed the petition to rehear en banc last year’s landmark ruling that the heirs of the art dealers who sold the Guelph Treasure (or Welfenschatz) may pursue their...more
One of the longest-running court cases in the United States about art looted by the Nazis has been decided in favor of the current possessor, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, an instrumentality of the Kingdom of...more
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the judgment against Marei von Saher on her claims against the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena to recover Adam and Eve by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The Cranachs...more
(WASHINGTON-July 10, 2018) The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has affirmed the right of the heirs to the so-called Guelph Treasure (known in German as the Welfenschatz) to seek restitution in U.S. courts for the...more
A federal appeals court has upheld the growing consensus that the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) confers jurisdiction over foreign state actors in possession of art allegedly looted by and/or overseen by the Nazis....more
6/27/2017
/ Appeals ,
Expropriation ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Heirs ,
Hungary ,
Jurisdiction ,
Museums ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Restitution ,
Sovereign Immunity ,
Stolen Goods
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that Germany can be sued for the return of Nazi-looted art and artifacts under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. This is the first time Germany will...more
The decision on Friday to allow our clients’ claims to proceed against German and the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz for the restitution of the Guelph Treasure (or Welfenschatz) is ground-breaking in important respects,...more
The United States District Court for the District of Columbia has ruled that claims over the famed Guelph Treasure can proceed against Germany in a United States court. This is the first time Germany will have to defend...more
With reports that Russia is considering abandoning the nearly five year old embargo on loans of cultural artifacts into the United States, the cited connection between that willingness and the recent passage of the Foreign...more
Congress has passed and President Obama is expected to sign two bills related to looted art and the availability of U.S. courts to hear disputes over them. The Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2016 and the...more
Word came this week of two resolutions of claims to Nazi-looted art in museums in New York and Cologne, and a new Nazi-looted claim against Germany filed in Washington. Barely a month after the Neue Galerie (of Austrian and...more
Two restitution related bills have advanced past the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate: the Holocaust Expropriated Art Act (S.B. 2763, the HEAR Act), and the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional...more
9/19/2016
/ Asset Seizure ,
Fine Art ,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) ,
Foreign Sovereigns ,
HEAR Act ,
Museums ,
Nazi Looted Art ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Restitution ,
Russia ,
Stolen Goods
The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing this week (video available here) on the Holocaust Art Recovery Act (the “HEAR Act”) that drew welcome attention to the ongoing challenges to the restitution of Nazi-looted art. We...more