News & Notes

March 16, 2012 (KARLSRHUE, GERMANY): The German High Court (Bundesgerichtshof) issued its written opinion this morning confirming that Peter Sachs is the legal owner of his father’s stolen poster collection and that a German museum must return the collection to him. In a landmark case, the High Court’s ruling restores ownership of one of the largest and most famous poster collections in the world (estimated at approximately 4,200 vintage posters) to Mr. Sachs, the American son of Hans Sachs, the Jewish collector whose life’s work was stolen by the Gestapo in 1938. An appeals court ruled last year that notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Sachs was the owner of his father’s collection and that it had been unlawfully seized by the Nazis, the court lacked authority, under German law, to compel the German Historical Museum in Berlin (“DHM”) to return the poster collection to him. The High Court, in granting Mr. Sachs’ July 2010 petition, agreed to hear the appeal because “of the fundamental importance of the case,” noting that “in cases where restitution claims were impossible to file for factual reasons at the time- as in this case-, the issues of the relationship between restitution law and general civil laws is in need of review and clarification.”

February 5, 2010 (WEST PALM BEACH, FL): A civil lawsuit (Julin et al. v. Chiquita Brands Int’l) brought by the New Tribes Mission of Sanford, Florida and the families of five missionaries kidnapped and murdered by the Colombian terrorist organization known as Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (“FARC”) against Chiquita Brands International, Inc. (“Chiquita”) can go forward according to a ruling issued today by Federal District Court Judge Kenneth A. Marra.

Oradell, NJ (July 17, 2009) In a landmark decision (BVerwG 5 C 33/07), the Federal Administrative Court (German High Court) decided on July 17, 2009, that shares owned by Jewish directors of the publicly traded Deutsche Kabelwerke and sold under duress as a result of Nazi era persecution, have to be compensated according to the proportional value of the company. The decision, which puts an end to a 17-year legal dispute has implications beyond the narrow facts of the Deutsche Kabelwerke case as it is the first decision issued by the High Court on this specific issue of compensation for "Aryanized" shareholdings.