Registration is now open here for our first in-person event in more than three years! We will meet at Phillips auction house’s stunning new locationfor lively discussions of two hot topics affecting the art world. I am very proud that my partners at Sullivan & Worcester LLP and I are one of the lead event sponsors as well. There will also be time for networking and for viewing the workscoming up for sale at Phillips’ March 8 “New Now” auction. The event is free of charge, but you must register in advance.

Topics: TEFAF, Crozier Fine Arts, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Responsible Art Market initiative, Sustainability, Phillips, Birgit Kurtz, Nanne Dekking, Artory, Laura Lupton, Nicole Bouchard Tejeiro, Louise Carron, Klaris Law PLLC, Citi Global Wealth, Elena Zavelev, Ben Heim, NFTs, Galleries Commit, Sofie Scheerlinck, Deborah Querub

There’s just no other way to say it: the last 18 months have been extraordinarily hard. Professionally, what I have missed the most is the chance to connect with, and learn from colleagues, particularly those far away. It is therefore with great excitement and pride that I can announce that the International Bar Association’s Intellectual Property Section will hold a live, in-person conference next month on trends in IP law. As my second year as co-chair of the Art, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee winds down, I am so pleased that we will be contributing a panel to this terrific event about, what else, Non-Fungible Tokens. As anyone who has watched my LinkedIn feed this past summer will know, Berlin holds a very special place in my life and so I look forward to making my first trip overseas in a very long time to a city that is like a second home.

The program, to which the several committees organized, is below and registration is open.

Bis zum nächsten Mal in Berlin!

Topics: Berlin, Art Cultural Institutions and Heritage Committee o, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, IBA, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Anne-Sophie Nardon, Laurent De Muyter, Blanca Escribano, Frank P Maier-Rigaud, ABC Economics, Anne Vallery, Katharina Garbers-von Boehm, Büsing, Müffelmann & Theye, Martin Wilson, Phillips Auctioneers, Johann König, Elisa Henry, Ruben A Hofmann, Paulina Silva, Grace Nacimiento, Laurent Schummer, Luc Govaert, Joanne Wheeler, Jason Jarvis Jardine, Nazli Cansin Karga Giritli, Novartis, Niko Härting, Sajai Singh, Martin Viciano Gofferje, Borghese Associes, KÖNIG GALERIE, Erik Valgaeren, Özge Atilgan, Corey Salsberg, Felix Engelhardt, Christine Graham, Volodymyr Yakubovskyy

It has been a great source of pride that in the last year, the Art, Cultural Institutions and Heritage Law Committee of the International Bar Association has remained active and engaged with issues of art and cultural property law despite the pandemic. We had a very exciting in-person program organized and ready to go for June, 2020 at the Ecole du Louvre, where I snapped this picture in February 2020 expecting to be back just four months later. Fate intervened, of course, but with thanks to my co-chair last year Giuseppe Calabi, and my co-chair starting January 1 of this year Anne-Sophie Nardon, we have held a webinar in June, a panel at the IBA’s Virtually Together conference, and stayed active in our publications and newsletter. Cultural property and commercial art law certainly hasn’t taken a break for the pandemic, and while I very much miss our in-person gatherings, it has allowed us to reach new members and grow the ranks of our officer team. We are ever larger and more diverse, with officer representation from every continent except Australia (and Antarctica--so far!).

Topics: Karen Sanig, Anne Laure Bandle, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Mishcon de Reya, Art Loss Register, Court of Arbitration for Art, Sharon Hecker, Anne-Sophie Nardon, Borel & Barbey, Olivier de Baecque, Giuseppe Calabi, Davina Given, Armstrong Teasdale LLP, Stan Putter, Angell Xi, Jingtian & Gongcheng, Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, James Ratcliffe, CBM & Partners Studio, Klaus-Jürgen Kraatz, Kraatz & Kraatz, Noor Kadhim, Smallegange, Steve Schindler, Schindler Cohen & Hochman

I will be speaking next Tuesday March 16, 2021 at a virtual event co-sponsored by the University of Denver's Center for Art Collecting Ethics and hosted and the Holocaust Museum Houston entitled “Legal and Ethical Challenges in Art Collection Stewardship.” Readers of the Art Law Report or of A Tragic Fate--Law and Ethics in the Battle over Nazi Looted Art (2017) will of course know that this is a topic of great personal and professional interest, and I'm pleased to join an august panel led by the University of Denver's Elizabeth Campbell, a scholar and author of Defending National Treasures: French Art and Heritage Under Vichy (2011), a wonderful study of its subject. I first met Dr. Campbell in 2017 at the conference in Cambridge “From Refugees to Restitution: The History of Nazi Looted Art in the UK in Transnational Perspective” at which we both spoke. She started the Center for Art Collecting Ethics, which has hosted and organized in-depth study.

Topics: Sullivan and Worcester LLP, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Elizabeth Campbell, University of Denver, Renée Albiston, Kirkland Museum, Denver Art Museum, Gus Kopriva, Redbud Gallery

I am pleased to be a presenter and panelist at an event later this month on a topic of evergreen currency: museums and deaccessioning. As we’ve covered here, the pandemic has put pressure on museums in ways that were hard to foresee only 12 months ago. The response by museums, museum associations, and attorneys general has taken a variety of approaches. Just in the last year alone from Brooklyn, to Baltimore, to Syracuse, and most recently the Metropolitan Museum of Art, whether, when, and how museums should handle sales of their collections remains a volatile subject. 

Topics: Donn Zaretsky, Dallas Museum of Art, New York University, Deaccessioning, Williams College, Christie's, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, 17 U.S.C. § 106A(a)(3)(A)-(B), Nicholas M. O'Donnell, ARTnews, Jakob Dupont, Sarah Douglas, Brooklyn Museum, Syracuse University, Anne Pasternak, Stephanie Johnson-Cunningham, Museum Hue, Dean Craig M. Boise, Andrew Saluti, Agustín Arteaga, Joseph Thompson, Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, Courtney Aladro, Mark Gold, James Sheehan, Steven Lubar, Brown University, Everson Museum of Art, Emily Stokes-Rees, Cara Starke, Sally Yerkovich, Brian Frye, University of Kentucky College of Law, Silberman Zaretsky, PC, Peter Dean, Randolph College, Andria Derstine, Oberlin College, William Eiland, Carl Van Vechten Art Gallery, Christy Coleman, Ken Turino, Nina del Rio, Hindman Auctions, Michael Shapiro, Allison Whiting, Julia Courtney, Christopher Bedford, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Julia Pelta, Fisher Museum, Thomas Campbell, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Linda Harrison, Glenn D. Lowry, The Museum of Modern Art, Tracey Riese, Melody Kanschat, Museum Leadership Institute, Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Betsy Bradley, Mississippi Museum of Art, Michael O’Hare, Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley, Erin Richardson, Frank & Glory, Smith Green & Gold LLP, New York State Department of Law, Michael Conforti, Amy Whitaker, Stefanie Jandl, Deborah Kass, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Meleko Mokgosi, Wendy Red Star, Carrie Mae Weems, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Roxana Velásquez, The San Diego Museum of Art, University of Georgia Museum of Art, Jamaal Sheats, Fisk University, Kristina Durocher, Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Historic New England, Lawrence Yerdon, Strawbery Banke Museum, Scott Wands, American Association for State and Local History, When is it Okay to Sell the Monet?, Glenn Adamson, Bern University of the Arts, Michelle Millar, The Newark Museum of Art

As potential regulation of the art market gathers in the United States, the increasing relevance of the Responsible Art Market Initiative is ever clearer. And while we will miss gathering in Geneva for the first time in several years, RAM is undeterred. Join us on Friday January 29, 2021 for a virtual edition of the annual RAM event, this year entitled “Innovation and change in a Responsible Art Market.” The program follows below (including a virtual networking opportunity), and registration by 27 January 2021 can be accomplished using the following link: www.responsibleartmarket.org/event-registration. 

See you then. Until next year, this will have to suffice for ein Stückchen der Schweiz from last February:

Topics: Anne Laure Bandle, Reibpartie, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Art Law Foundation, New York University, TEFAF, Geneva, Sandrine Giroud, Lalive, Albert Martin Wolffson, Eugene Driker, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Henry Zacharias, Copyright, EPA Victory, Sullivan and Worcester LLP, Bonhams, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Elmyr de Hory, Mathilde Heaton, RAM, Responsible Art Market initiative, Phillips, Stephenson Harwood, Jonathan Petropoulos, Nanne Dekking, Artory, National Defense Authorization Act, Nicolas Galley, Borel & Barbey, Valentina Volshkova, Masterworks, Tom Christopherson, Melanie Damani, Pace Gallery, University of Zurich, Masha Golovina, Hottinger Group, Freya Simms, LAPADA, The Association of Art and Antiques Dealers, Audry Li, Zhong Lun Law Firm, Shanghai

(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 filed their brief today in the Supreme Court of the United States. It can be viewed at this link. The Supreme Court is set to hear argument on December 7, 2020, on whether the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) and its “takings clause” create jurisdiction over the heirs’ claims for restitution of the Welfenschatz—as all reviewing courts so far have held. The Welfenschatz is held by the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz (in English, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation).

Topics: Third Reich, Gestapo, Z.M. Hackenbroch, Prussia, Germany, Nazi-looted art, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Markus Stoetzel, Supreme Court, Mel Urbach, SPK, Nuremberg race laws, Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Hermann Goering, FSIA, NS Raubkunst, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, J.S. Goldschmidt, Gerald Stiebel, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Adolf Hitler, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Alan Philipp, Welfenschatz, I. Rosenbaum, Paul Körner, Wannsee Conference, Jed Leiber, House of Brunswick (Braunschweig)-Lüneberg, Emily Haber, Wilhelm Stuckart, Final Solution

Readers of the Art Law Report know that for several years running now, I have enjoyed events in Geneva organized by the Art Law Foundation and the Responsible Art Market Initiative in January/February.  I am happy to report that this year is no exception.  RAM is presenting its latest event “A Responsible Art Market in Practice,” to be held on Friday February 1, 2019 at the Palexpo in the venue of the artgenève fair.  After joining the RAM Taskforce and contributing to its Toolkit and country guide for the US, I am pleased to be presenting one of the case studies, in between a roster of distinguished speakers and experts.  I hope to see you there! 

Topics: Art Law Foundation, The Art Newspaper, Geneva, artgenève, Sandrine Giroud, Lalive, Irina Tarsis, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Suzanne Gyorgy, Georgina Adam, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Art Law Centre, Mathilde Heaton, Jean-Bernard Schmid, Responsible Art Market initiative, Phillips, Financial Times, Palexpo, Justine Ferland, Carine Decroi, Artcurial, Philippe Davet, CitiBank, Aude Lemogne, Ochsner & associés, Roland Foord, Stephenson Harwood, Association Marché d’Art Suisse, Blondeau & Cie, Andreas Ritter

I am pleased to be speaking on a panel at the upcoming Global Auction House Summit presented by Invaluable, the leading technology partner for online auction services.  I will be presenting on the issues of Managing Reputation & Risk, and look forward to a lively discussion.  The conference schedule is reprinted below, and registration is available here. 

Topics: Auctions, London, Melanie Gerlis, The Art Newspaper, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Art Loss Register, Real Estate Development, Affordable Housing, Institutional Shareholder Services, Proxy Voting Policies, John Albrecht, US Trust, ARTMYN, Cuseum, Andrea Danese, Athena Art Finance, Jakob Dupont, Bruun Rasmussen Auctioneers of Fine Art, Lori Hotz, Lobus, Bas Kuiper, Sophie MacPherson, Julian Radcliffe, Global Auction House Summit, Leonard Joel, Martina Batovic, Dorotheum, Evan Beard, Anna Brady, Anthony Calnek, Brendan Ciecko, Pierre Fautrel, Obvious, Andy Foster, Phillips, Financial Times, Dr. Anna-Sophie Hollenders, Raue LLP, AMFAD, Christopher McKeogh, Gene Shapiro, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Mary-Alice Stack, Creative United, Rob Weisberg, Invaluable, Georgina C. Winthrop, Grogan & Company, Shapiro Auctions

I am pleased to be taking part in a symposium at the Skirball Center in Los Angeles on September 26, 2018, “The Future of Nazi Looted Art Recovery in the US and Abroad.”  Presented by Cypress LLP and the Sotheby’s Institute of Art/Claremont Graduate University, the program assembles an impressive group of presenters in whose company I’m grateful to be included.  Registration is available here, and the schedule is below:

Topics: Sotheby’s Institute of Art, Nazi-looted art, Simon Frankel, Commission for Looted Art in Europe, Covington & Burling LLP, Anne Webber, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Sotheby's, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, Daniel McClean, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act, HEAR Act, Isabel von Klitzing, The Orpheus Clock, Simon Goodman, Lucian Simmons, Eyal Dolev, Jonathan Petropolous, Claremont McKenna College, The Faustian Bargain, Laurence Eisenstein, Eisenstein Malanchuk LLP, Lothar Fremy, Rosbach & Fremy, Nixon Peabody LLP, Mark Labaton, Getty Institute, Bob Muller, René Gimpel, Cypress LLP, Jonathan Neil, Skirball Center, The Art World in Nazi Germany, Dr. Lynn Rother, Thaddeus Stauber, Stephen Clark