A federal court in California has dismissed a claim by a buyer against Sotheby’s that alleged that the auction house sold him a work whose title was clouded because Hermann Göring had once owned it. What seemed liked a interesting new theory of liability was dismissed because the buyer had agreed in advance to litigate any disputes from the sale in the United Kingdom. It is somewhat surprising that the buyer even tried.
Lawsuit Against Sotheby’s for Nazi-tainted Art Sale Dismissed; Why it Was Filed in California at all Remains Unclear
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on July 8, 2013 at 10:46 AM
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: provenance, Louis-Michel van Loo, Auctions, Nazi, California Consumers Legal Remedies Act, Christie's, Hermann Goring, Collections, Restitution, section 1750 of the California Civil Code, Allegorical Portrait of a Lady as Diana Wounded by, Sotheby's
Bloomberg Law Publishes My Article on the Chabad Case and Russian Art Loan Embargo
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on June 19, 2013 at 12:08 PM
My article “Chabad Library Case and Russian Art Loan Embargo Roil International Waters” was published in the June 4, 2013 edition of Bloomberg BNA - The United State Law Week. My article reviews the history of the Chabad Lubavitch library dispute and its impact on international relations and the art world. The article is linked here, reproduced with permission from the United States Law Week, Copyright © 2013 by the Bureau of National Affairs.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: Bloomberg BNA, The United State Law Week, Chabad Library Case and Russian Art Loan Embargo R, Restitution, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Chabad Lubavitch, Publications, Jewish Museum Moscow, Nicholas M. O'Donnell
Speakers List for ARCA Art & Heritage Conference Released
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on May 29, 2013 at 10:46 AM
ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes Against Art) has released the Speakers list for next month's Art & Heritage Conference June 21-23 in Amelia, Italy. I will be presenting on the history of World War II restitution litigation in the United States, its effectiveness, and its prospects for the future. The full list is below. Hope to see you there!
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: Carrie Johnson, South Texas College of Law, cultural property, Utrecht University, Stefano Alessandrini, Alesia Koush, Joris Kila, James Moore, Toby Bull, Verity Algar, University of Guelph, Joshua Nelson, Ruth Godthelp, Cynthia Roholt, Saskia Hufnagel, James Bond, Caravaggio, Restitution, University of Reading, Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Events, World War II, Foundation Romualdo Del Bianco, Royal Armouries at the Royal Armouries Museum in L, Judith Harris, Felicity Strong, Amelia, University of Melbourne, University of Amsterdam, Theodosia Latsi, Jerker Rydén, ARCA, University of Cologna, Giulia Mezzi, Nicholas M. O'Donnell, University College London, Royal Library of Sweden, Chris Dobson, Derek Fincham, Art & Heritage Conference, ARTnews
Presentation to the 5th Annual ARCA Art Crime Conference June 21-23, 2013
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on May 3, 2013 at 7:56 AM
I will be speaking at the 5th annual Art Crime Conference held by ARCA (Association for Research into Crimes Against Art) in Amelia, Italy between June 21-23, 2013. My talk will address Holocaust restitution litigation in the United States, similar to the paper I gave in Maastricht in March but covering important more recent developments as well (notably the Hungary case).
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: cultural property, Vernon Rapley, Charlie Hill, Art Crime Conference, Howard Spiegler, Maastricht, Carabinieri TPC collectively, Association for Research into Crimes Against Art, John Merryman, Neil Brodie, Jason Felch, Larry Rothfield, Dick Drent, Karl von Habsburg, Restitution, World War II, Lord Colin Renfrew, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Paolo Giorgio Ferri, Stuttgart Detective Ernst Schöller, Francesco Rutelli, Amelia, Ralph Frammolino, ARCA, Italy, Norman Palmer, Dr. Joris Kila, Dr. George H. O. Abungu
DC Circuit Reinstates All Claims that Were Dismissed in Herzog Case Against Hungary-UPDATED
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on April 23, 2013 at 9:35 AM
The DC Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the entire set of claims brought by the Herzog heirs against the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Applied Arts, and the Budapest University of Technology and Economics. The appellate decision focuses on the claim that an agreement was reached after WWII to hold the paintings for their owners, not the claims relating to their wartime fate. In so doing, the court pushed to the side a whole range of defenses for sovereign defendants that have been increasingly successful. The court also reinstated claims to ownership of 11 works whose title was previously litigated, in an opinion that sets a low bar for collateral attacks on foreign judgments.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: David de Csepel, Nazi Germany, Angela Maria Herzog, Hungary, WWII, Viktor Orban, res judicata, Julia Alice Herzog, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Baron Mor Lipot Herzog, Hungarian National Gallery, Jori Finkel, Budapest Museum of Fine Arts, Adolf Eichmann, FSIA, expropriation exception”, Restitution, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(2), 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Alison Frankel, András Herzog, Janos Lazar, Museum of Applied Arts
Art and Heritage Disputes at the University of Maastricht
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on March 15, 2013 at 8:21 AM
On March 24-25, 2013, I will be attending the Art and Heritage Disputes at the University of Maastricht. The seminar website is here:
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: cultural property, Anne Laure Bandle, David Carey Miller, Jos Van Beurden, Michail Risvas, Bruno S. Frey, Sebastian A. Green Martinez, Anne-Marie Carstens, Jan Hladik, Christa Roodt, Asoid Garcia-Marquez, Alessandro Chechi, Restitution, Craig Forrest, Athina Papaefstratiou Fouchard, Eleni Polymenopoulou, Yannick Radi, Christian Armbruester, S. I. Strong, University of Maastricht, Andrzej Jakubowski, Art and Heritage Disputes, Sabrina Urbinati
MFA and Harvard To Keep Iranian Antiquities, FSIA/Seizure Questions for Museums Left Unanswered
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on March 15, 2013 at 8:00 AM
The 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 in a museum are “property” of a source country that could be used to satisfy an unrelated judgment, or whether a museum displaying an object from a foreign country makes the object “used in commercial activity” such that it is no longer immune from seizure under the FSIA.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: cultural property, Terrorism Risk Insurance Act of 2002, 28 U.S.C. § 1610, 22 U.S.C. § 2259, Rubin v. Islamic Republic of Iran, 116 Stat. 2322, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, § 201 (a), Harvard University, Restitution, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Antiquities, Immunity from Seizure Act, Museums, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Pub. L. No. 107-297
President Putin Vows to Keep Chabad Library in Russia
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on February 20, 2013 at 4:51 AM
Backing off some of the more belligerent comments made recently by the Foreign Ministry, Russian President Vladimir Putin has nonetheless signalled that Russia has no plans to return the Chabad library to comply with a 2010 judgment or the more recent sanctions order. Both Reuters and the Art Newspaper reported that Putin proposed to store the Schneerson library in the newly built Jewish Museum in Moscow. Putin stated "The Schneerson Collection belongs to Russia. . . .If we now open a Pandora's box and start satisfying similar requests, there will be no end to these claims. Maybe one day we will be able to do this, but now we are absolutely not ready for this. This is impossible," Putin said." That statement simply begs the question of what the Pandora's box is that Putin fears. Russia has, for example, refused for years even to discuss cultural artifacts taken to the Soviet Union as the German army retreated in World War II. The more conciliatory tone is a marked change from recent threats to try to find the United States in default in retalation for the recent sanctions order, although it does little to address the fundamental dispute.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: Moscow Jewish Museum, Restitution, Schneerson library, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Vladimir Putin, Chabad
Russia Swiftly Lashes Out At Sanctions Concerning Schneerson/Chabad Library, U.S. Government Still Silent
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on January 17, 2013 at 8:53 AM
Despite refusing to participate in a lawsuit for nearly three years since a judgment that ordered the return to the Chabad Lubavitch movement in Brooklyn of the late Rebbe Menachem Schneerson’s library, the Russian Federation swiftly spoke up when news came of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia’s order yesterday sanctioning and fining the defendants $50,000 per day until they comply with the 2010 judgment. The Washington Post reports today that the U.S. government has declined to comment.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: cultural property, Menachem Schneerson, Russian Foreign Ministry, sanctions, Restitution, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Chabad
Russia Sanctioned $50,000 per day for Defiance of Chabad Library Judgment that Led to Art and Cultural Loan Embargo
Posted by
Nicholas O'Donnell on January 16, 2013 at 10:45 AM
In 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 State Library, and the Russian State Military Archive will be fined collectively $50,000 per day until they comply with a 2010 judgment to return the library of Menachem Schneerson, the late charismatic leader of the worldwide Chabad Lubavitch movement, to the movement in Brooklyn, New York. Whereas the court lacked any power to compel the seizure of the library itself overseas, the plaintiffs will now be armed with a very real financial bludgeon against the defendants that have thumbed their noses at the U.S. courts for more than three years. In any case where the defendant refuses to obey a court order that court has a wide array of tools to compel compliance, but this case has been an awkward example of the limits on a court of law faced with an uncooperative party overseas. Particularly where the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1603 (the FSIA) was the basis for jurisdiction, as it is in so many wartime art restitution cases, and the fact that the 2010 judgment led to a still-ongoing embargo of art and cultural artifact loans to the United States, the decision is a significant one for the realm of art law.
0 Comments Click here to read/write comments
Topics: cultural property, Lativa, Menachem Schneerson, Germany, Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, Rebbe, 28 U.S.C. § 1603, Bolshevik, the Russian Ministry of Culture and Mass Communica, Russian Federation, the Russian State Library, FSIA, Restitution, the Russian State Military Archive, World War II, Foreign Sovereign Immunities, Agudas Chasei Chabad, Poland, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Immunity from Seizure Act
