Despite some predictions (!) of a swift ruling on the Chabad plaintiffs' motion for contempt for the Russian state library defendants' refusal to comply with an order two years ago to return the library of Menachem Schneerson, the U.S. District Court in Washington, DC today solicited the views of the United States on the possibility of holding the Russian defendants in contempt for their non-compliance with the orders of the Court and their general disregard of the legal proceedings. Russian state museums have refused for more than a year to lend cultural objects into the U.S. because of the ruling, despite multiple and unassailable levels of assurances that loans of objects other than the Schneerson library are safe from any seizure related to the Chabad case.
Nicholas O'Donnell
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Topics: Russian art embargo, Collections, FSIA, Restitution, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Chabad
Despite Criticism of S.B. 2212’s Proposed Amendment to the FSIA, New Law Would Not Enable Stolen Art
Doreen 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.
Topics: Legislation, Russian art embargo, Nazi stolen art, Russia, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue, Collections, FSIA, Restitution, World War II, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Portrait of Wally, Immunity from Seizure Act, New York Times, Chabad, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
Consistent with expectations after reports from the court hearing in March, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles dismissed the case brought by artist Chuck Close and others that alleged violations of the California Resale Royalty Act (the “CRRA”) by Sotheby’s, Christie’s and eBay, and ruled that the CRRA is unconstitutional in its entirety. Similar claims against eBay were also dismissed in a shorter opinion referencing the Sotheby’s and Christie’s decision.
Topics: Legislation, Resale Royalties, Chuck Close, Commerce Clause, Christie's, Dormant Commerce Clause, Collections, California Resale Royalty Act, Copyright, Sotheby's, eBay
A new piece at the Art Newspaper reflects on the importance of the Portrait of Wally case. Wally was seized in 1998 by customs officials on the theory that it was stolen property when imported into the U.S. The painting sat in a warehouse for 12 years, until a settlement returned the painting to Vienna in 2010 and a payment to Lea Bondi's heirs was made. I recall well the citywide celebrations in the Austrian capital when the painting returned; banners on lampposts proclaimed Bildnis Wally kehrt zurück—Portrait of Wally returns!
Topics: Maria Altmann, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, The Art Newspaper, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, FSIA, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Portrait of Wally, S.B. 2212, Immunity from Seizure Act, Customs, Gustav Klimt, Vienna
It’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.
Topics: Girolamo Romano, Dianne Feinstein, Nazi-looted art, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1603, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue, Hermann Goring, Collections, FSIA, Restitution, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, Schneerson library, Orrin Hatch, Senate Bill 2212, World War II, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Portrait of Wally, Immunity from Seizure Act, Customs, Chabad, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
Raising another hurdle to restitution claims, the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles against the Norton Simon Museum to the remnants of the famed Jacques Goudstikker collection, on the grounds that her case is preempted by the United States’ foreign affairs doctrine. In an unusually apologetic decision, the court ruled that regardless of the merits of her claims, the law of foreign affairs makes the dispute inappropriate for resolution by civil litigation.
Topics: Terezin Declaration, Norton Simon Museum, Hungary, Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Jacques Goudstikker, Cassirer, Hungarian National Gallery, George Stroganoff-Scherbatoff, Holocaust Victims Redress Act, Restitution, Marei Von Saher, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Rue St. Honoré, Camille Pissarro, Göring, Soviet Union, Washington Principles, California Code of Civil Procedure 354.3
The joint panel presentation by Sullivan & Worcester LLP’s Art and Museum Law Group (home of your Art Law Report) and Citi Private Bank next Wednesday, April 11, 2012 in Boston that I was scheduled to moderate with Cornelius J. Murray, III, Trust & Estates Practice Chair, Sullivan & Worcester LLP; Suzanne Gyorgy, Head of Art Advisory & Finance, Citi Private Bank; and Brian Bandler, Director, Wealth Planner, Citi Private Bank has been postponed.
Topics: Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Art and Museum Law Group, Suzanne Gyorgy, Art Law Report
The St. Louis Art Museum has defeated the federal goverment's efforts to seize the Egyptian Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer under U.S. customs laws.
The Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer is a funerary mask of an ancient Egyptian noblewoman. The St. Louis Art Museum purchased it from a dealer in 1998. Sometime later, the United States began to seek its seizure, arguing that it was stolen property. The museum sued the government in the first instance to seek a declaration that the attempts to seize the Mask should cease. The United States then brought a civil forfeiture action under U.S. customs laws (proceedings in which the object is the defendant, making the case United States v. The Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer; it is left to the person claiming ownership to file a claim in which she bears the burden of proof). In its papers, the government essentially argued that the fact that the Mask had gone missing in Egypt by 1973 and then surfaced in a sale in the United States decades later, meant that it could not have been imported legally.
Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, St. Louis Art Museum, the Art Law Report, United States, Customs, Civil Forfeiture, Ancient Egypt
I can’t let today’s news about the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin go unremarked. A center for art and culture since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it has apparently ordered vacated, with occupants carried out by force. Ironically, it’s really about a story about art and the absence of a legal framework, a building in the hottest part of the hottest city in Europe that no one seemed to own.
Topics: Berlin, Berlin Wall, DDR
The House of Representatives approved the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act on March 19, 2012, to remove the display of a work of art in the United States as basis to sue a foreign sovereign here. The law touches on important distinctions between immunity from suit—when a party cannot be sued at all—from immunity from seizure—when a particular object or asset cannot be seized.
Topics: Legislation, Immunity from Seizure, FSIA, Restitution, Senate Bill 2212, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, House of Representatives, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity, State Department
