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 then-Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch movement. Agudas Chasidei Chabad of United States v. Russian Fed’n, 110 F.4th 242 (D.C. Cir. 2024) (Chabad 2024). Brought under what is known as the expropriation exception, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (the FSIA), the case has involved Russia’s withdrawal from the case and default, sanctions of $50,000 per day for non-compliance and a judgment of more than $175 million, a retaliatory embargo on cultural property exchange that continues to this day, and multiple appeals.
In the most recent decision, the court of appeals held that the second element of the expropriation exception (what is known as the commercial nexus requirement) was not met and therefore deprived the court of any jurisdiction. Specifically, the D.C. Circuit held that if the defendant is the foreign state, the expropriation exception may only be invoked if the property is physically present in the United States (which the Rebbe’s library is not). The Supreme Court has declined to review two relatively recent cases that reached the same conclusion, it will bear watching of the plaintiffs seek further review now given a circuit split with the 9th Circuit on the issue.
Read More
Topics:
de Csepel,
Immunity from Seizure,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Supreme Court,
Agudas Chasidei Chabad,
Russian Federation,
FSIA,
expropriation exception”,
sovereign immunity,
Russian State Library,
Chabad,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Welfenschatz,
D.C. Circuit,
Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp,
Simon v. Republic of Hungary,
Lubavitcher Rebbe,
Schubarth,
Judge Randolph,
Brett Kavanaugh,
Judge Griffith
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 Preussischer Kulturbesitz for restitution of the Guelph Treasure (in German, the Welfenschatz). This brief was in response to the Supreme Court’s invitation in January that the SG file a brief expressing the views of the United States. In an unprecedented abdication of 80 years of leadership redressing Nazi-looted art, the Solicitor General argued that there is no circumstance in which a Nazi-forced sale victimizing a German Jew in the 1930s could constitute a violation of international law such the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act would confer jurisdiction over either Germany or the SPK. The U.S. government has taken the position that only property claims against non-Germans suffice—even though, of course, the U.S. government has acknowledged in every relevant context since the early 1940s that Jews ceased to be full members of German society on the day Hitler assumed power: January 30, 1933. This is an historic disgrace. Germany has rightly been shamed for minimizing in court over the last five years the genocidal character of its persecution against Jews, but for the United States to do so the day after we rightly honored the hundreds of thousands of Americans who died to defeat Nazi Germany is appalling.
Read More
Topics:
Monuments Men,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Washington Conference on Holocaust Era Assets,
Supreme Court,
Holocaust Victims Redress Act,
Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
Hermann Goering,
FSIA,
Monuments Fine Arts and Archives Program,
Washington Principles,
Federal Republic of Germany,
Welfenschatz,
Military Government Law 59,
Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act,
HEAR Act,
Wannsee Conference,
D.C. Circuit,
Military Government Law No. 59,
london declaration
(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 value of the treasured art collection. The appellate court rejected Defendants’ arguments that U.S. courts lack jurisdiction, or that Germany’s treatment of its Jews in the 1930s should be immune from judicial scrutiny. While the Federal Republic of Germany itself was dismissed as a defendant, the actual possessor and key party in interest (the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, or SPK) must now prove that a 1935 transfer of the collection by a consortium of Jewish art dealers to Hermann Goering’s minions was a legitimate transaction if they are to retain the collection.
Read More
Topics:
Gestapo,
Z.M. Hackenbroch,
Prussia,
Germany,
Nazi-looted art,
Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act,
Markus Stoetzel,
Mel Urbach,
SPK,
Hermann Goering,
FSIA,
NS Raubkunst,
Sullivan & Worcester LLP,
J.S. Goldschmidt,
Adolf Hitler,
Nicholas M. O'Donnell,
Welfenschatz,
I. Rosenbaum,
D.C. Circuit,
Consortium,
Genocide Convention,
Reichstag,
flight taxes,
Baltimore Sun,
Luftwaffe
