The Department of Justice has made public its plans to let the deadline pass for seeking rehearing or further review of the June, 2014 decision affirming the dismissal of its efforts to seize the Mask of Ka Nefer Nefer in the St. Louis Art Museum by civil forfeiture. In an interview with St. Louis Post-Dispatch, United States Attorney Richard Callahan stated that “The Department of Justice will take no further legal action with respect to the mask.”
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, St. Louis Art Museum, Department of Justice, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), the Art Law Report, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, United States, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Museums, Customs, Civil Forfeiture, Ancient Egypt
I wondered aloud two weeks ago what the St. Louis Art Museum would do with its declaratory judgment action over the Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit affirmed the dismissal of the related forfeiture action brought by the government. With the question of seizure answered for good, I suggested that the museum’s next move might be to dismiss its first-filed lawsuit, because its incentive to litigate the question of title was effectively removed entirely with the forfeiture off the table. Judith H. Dobrzynski picked up on this theme at Real Clear Arts.
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, Real Clear Arts, St. Louis Art Museum, Department of Justice, Judith H. Dobrzynski, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, United States, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Customs, Civil Forfeiture, Ancient Egypt
On the heels of the St. Louis Art Museum’s victory against the civil forfeiture action over the Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, the question arises what the museum will do with the lawsuit it filed in 2011 concerning the mask. That lawsuit, The Art Museum Subdistrict of the Metropolitan Zoological Park and Museum District of the City of Saint Louis and the County of Saint Louis, (the “SLAM Case”) filed before the civil forfeiture action that was the subject of last week’s opinion(United States vs. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, hereafter the “Forfeiture Action”), sought a declaratory judgment on several issues. This tactic is not uncommon when two parties disagree over a claim; essentially the party who would ordinarily be the defendant (here the possessor of the property, the museum), seeks offensively a declaration about the parties’ rights. Because of its recent victory in the Forfeiture Action, the museum’s best move may be to dismiss the SLAM Case now, rather than litigate ownership questions that it no longer has to answer.
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, Mohamed Ibrahim, St. Louis Art Museum, Department of Justice, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), the Art Law Report, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, United States, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Customs, Minister of Antiquities, Civil Forfeiture, Ancient Egypt
The Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit has affirmed the dismissal of the U.S. government’s attempt to seize the Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer from the St. Louis Art Museum. Despite the government’s persistent characterization the mask as stolen before it entered the country, the civil forfeiture case has been rebuffed. The narrow issue was whether the trial court had properly denied the government’s request to amend its complaint after an initial challenge, but as the 8th Circuit put it, “Underlying that issue is an attempt to expand the government’s forfeiture powers at the likely expense of museums and other good faith purchasers in the international marketplace for ancient artifacts.” That latter question will have to wait another day, because the case was resolved on the government’s missed deadlines and nothing more.
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, St. Louis Art Museum, Department of Justice, Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e), the Art Law Report, Restitution, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, United States, Antiquities, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Customs, Civil Forfeiture, Ancient Egypt
Steve Chabot (R-OH) has reintroduced the Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity Clarification Act (H.R. 4292), after a previous attempt to amend the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act with regard to the loan of cultural objects failed to become law in 2012. The text of the March 25, 2014 bill is identical to the version that passed in the House in 2012. Its co-sponsors are John Conyers (D-MI) and Bob Goodlatte (R-VA), and it has been referred to the House Judiciary Committee.
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Topics: Cornelius Gurlitt, Malewicz v. City of Amsterdam, Girolamo Romano, Gurlitt Collection, 22 U.S.C. § 2459, Christ Carrying the Cross Dragged by a Rogue, 517 F.Supp.2d 322, FSIA, Restitution, David Toren, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, Steve Chabot, Orrin Hatch, House Judiciary Committee, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), Senate Bill 2212, World War II, IFSA, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Altmann v. Republic of Austria, Portrait of Wally, John Conyers, Immunity from Seizure Act, Dianne Feinstein Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Federal Republic of Germany, 28 U.S.C. § 1605, H.R. 4292, Foreign Cultural Exchange Jurisdictional Immunity
After the U.S. District Court denied the government’s Motion to Reconsider its earlier dismissal of the claim to the Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer in the St. Louis Museum of Art, the government has tried another procedure to revive the case, one that is normally unremarkable. A review of the filings in the case raises the question, however, of whether that attempt is too late and the government’s only hopes now rest on an appeal. That is, the government may have promised the Court that it would file any request to file a new complaint of the sort it just did by no later than two weeks ago and missed its own self-imposed deadline.
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Topics: Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, St. Louis Art Museum, Collections, Restitution, 19 U.S.C. § 1595a, United States v. Mask of Ka-Nefer-Nefer, Customs, Civil Forfeiture
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.
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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
