The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York has dismissed claims for ownership of Madame Soler by Pablo Picasso, currently at the Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich. Just as the relevance of Judge Jed Rakoff’s comments over another art restitution case brought by the heirs of Paul von Mendelssohn Bartholdy unexpectedly came… Continue Reading
Tag Archives: Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act
VARA Likely to Apply Retroactively to Victor Henderson “Brooks Avenue Painting Claim”
Posted in Copyright, Intellectual Property, VARAWe reported recently on a new lawsuit in California invoking the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA) in the context of a mural by Victor Henderson, of the Los Angeles Fine Arts Squad. Henderson alleges that property owner Ralph Ziman had his “Brooks Avenue Painting” water blasted in 2013, thus destroying the integrity of his work… Continue Reading
Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act Passes House of Representatives Overwhelmingly
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Restitution, Uncategorized, World War IIThe Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (HR 4292) passed the House of Representatives yesterday, 388 to 4. Voting against were Reid Ribble (R, WI), Mark Sanford (R, SC), Marlin Stuzman (R, IN), and Justin Amash (R, MI). As discussed here previously, the bill would amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. §… Continue Reading
Limbach Advisory Commission Recommends Against German Restitution of “Guelph Treasure,” Focuses on Terms of 1929 Agreement for Intended Sale
Posted in Gurlitt Collection, Restitution, World War IIOne of the issues exposed and exacerbated by the ongoing Gurlitt collection stalemate is the question of Germany’s restitution procedures with respect to art. As the Bavarian legislative proposal to abolish the statute of limitations for claims against bad-faith acquirers is considered by the Bundestag, the “German Advisory Commission for the Return of Cultural Property… Continue Reading
New York Man Sues Germany For Liebermann Found With Gurlitt, but Allegations Face Real FSIA and Pleading Challenges
Posted in Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Gurlitt CollectionWhen I spoke in Heidelberg in January at the Institute for Jewish Studies conference “Appropriated Art—the Gurlitt Case,” one of the points I stressed in discussing U.S. restitution litigation was that the longer the Gurlitt case went unresolved (and do not be distracted by the “Voice of Russia” article that is being circulated as “Holocaust… Continue Reading
U.S. Again Asks Court to Ignore Russian Defiance of Chabad Judgment, and for Advance Notice to Hinder Plaintiffs’ Exercise of their Rights
Posted in Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, RestitutionIn response to the recent request by the Agudas Chasidei Chabad plaintiffs for an interim judgment on the compounding sanctions judgment for the Russian Federation’s refusal to comply with a 2010 judgment to return the ancestral library of the movement’s leader (Rebbe), the United States has filed a statement of position and asked the U.S…. Continue Reading
Cassirer Heirs’ Claims to Pissarro Work Revived by Appeals Court, the Year 2013 Shows that the Tide for Restitution May be Shifting Again
Posted in Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Gurlitt Collection, Restitution, World War IIThe U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit restored last week claims by heirs of Lilly Cassirer against the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection for the return of the Camille Pissarro painting Rue St. Honoré, après-midi, êffet de pluie. The Cassirers claim that the painting was expropriated from Lilly when she fled Nazi Germany in 1939 in exchange… Continue Reading
327 Gurlitt Collection Works Now Known; Time for Claims in the United States?
Posted in Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Gurlitt CollectionThe coordination office in Magdeburg continues to post details about works of art seized from Cornelius Gurlitt in Schwabing, with a total of 327 works now available for viewing. There has been almost no discussion yet, however, of what process the government will employ to allow claimants to make their case. Those in the United… Continue Reading
Gurlitt Taskforce Announces Plan to Post 590 More Works. Choice of Law, Procedure, and Venue for Claims Up in the Air
Posted in Gurlitt Collection, Restitution, World War IIIngeborg Berggreen-Merkel, leader of the newly formed federal “Schwabing Art Find” taskforce, announced plans to release information about 590 additional works found in the apartment of Cornelius Gurlitt, after the posting earlier this week of 25 works at www.lostart.de. Meanwhile, the heirs of Max Ernst have publicly disclosed (through their attorney Jürgen Wilhelm in Cologne)… Continue Reading
Revival of the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act?
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure ActThe Holocaust Art Restitution Project reports today that a new version of Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act that would have amended the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act to preclude claims against defendants whose “commercial activity” is limited to the loan of artwork whose ownership is in dispute, but which are… Continue Reading
Does The Art World Have a Russia Problem?
Posted in UncategorizedSeveral overlapping issues in recent months have turned what was an awkward elephant in the room into a major issue facing the art world today. Namely: the increasing role that Russia is playing in restitution, loans and exhibition controversies has aggregated to Vladimir Putin an extraordinary amount of influence over these major international legal issues. … Continue Reading
MFA and Harvard To Keep Iranian Antiquities, FSIA/Seizure Questions for Museums Left Unanswered
Posted in Antiquities, Cultural Property, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Museums, RestitutionThe First Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed a win for the Museum of Fine Arts Boston and Harvard University concerning possession of a number of Iranian antiquities. The ruling left open, however, some interesting questions about the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA). In particular, the First Circuit did not have to rule on whether antiquities… Continue Reading
Russia Sanctioned $50,000 per day for Defiance of Chabad Library Judgment that Led to Art and Cultural Loan Embargo
Posted in Cultural Property, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Restitution, World War IIIn a case that has tested the principles of how a defiant sovereign defendant can be compelled to comply with a court order, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has taken an emphatic step in an order issued today. The Russian Federation, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications, the Russian… Continue Reading
Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Unexpectedly Dies in Committee
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212Senate Bill 2212, previously passed by the House of Representatives, seemed to be gathering steam as 2012 came to a close. In November and December bipartisan sponsors were signing on, with no publicly-known opposition as it waited for a Senate Committee on the Judiciary hearing. Yet the New Year has come and gone—and with it… Continue Reading
Charles Schumer’s Co-Sponsorship of Senate Bill 2212 Could Signal Movement
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Legislation, Senate Bill 2212The federal register this week noted the addition on November 27, 2012 of Charles Schumer, New York’s senior Senator, as a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, the proposed amendment to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act that would exempt from the FSIA the loan of certain cultural objects… Continue Reading
Combining the Nazi Theft Exception in Senate Bill 2212 with Immunity from Seizure: Good Policy or Inconsistent Law?
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, World War IIOpposition to Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (a bill the Art Law Report favors in its frequent commentaries) has been renewed recently. Senate Bill 2212 (already passed by the House of Representatives) would remove the mere display of a work of art in the United States as a satisfactory… Continue Reading
U.S. Asks Court Not to Sanction Russian Defendants in Chabad Library Case—What Now?
Posted in Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Restitution, World War IICasting further doubt on the practical possibility of using the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) to recover cultural artifacts, the U.S. Government has at long last weighed in on the Chabad plaintiffs’ request for contempt sanctions against the Russian defendants, defendants who have defied for more than two years a judgment to return the library of… Continue Reading
Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Amendment Coverage Continues to Miss the Mark: NPR Report Claims Bill Could “Thwart Return of Holocaust Art”
Posted in Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Legislation, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, Uncategorized, World War IIIs it time to invoke the Corollary to Godwin’s Law of Nazi Analogies (i.e., as a discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler increases, and once this occurs, that thread is over, and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically the argument ) concerning Senate Bill 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional… Continue Reading
Despite Criticism of S.B. 2212’s Proposed Amendment to the FSIA, New Law Would Not Enable Stolen Art
Posted in Collections, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Legislation, Restitution, World War IIDoreen Carvajal of the New York Times this week addressed Senate Bill 2212, (the “Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act”) this week, a bill approved in March by the House of Representatives. The article gives those most critical of the bill a chance to make their case. While well-intentioned, that criticism continues to miss… Continue Reading
Commentary Takes Shape on S.B. 2212, the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act
Posted in Collections, Customs, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, Uncategorized, World War IIIt’s been a few weeks since the House passed the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (H.R. 4086) and sent it on to the Senate for consideration as S.B. 2212. It has bipartisan sponsorship there (Dianne Feinstein and Orrin Hatch), but no word yet on when it will be put to a vote. As… Continue Reading
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