US jurisdiction and state immunity Sample Clauses

US jurisdiction and state immunity. The Act of State Doctrine would normally require a court to refrain from examining the validity of acts by foreign governments (like seizures or post- war restitution decisions), and is for example a reason for courts – in the US and elsewhere – to dismiss claims regarding artefacts confiscated and nationalised in the 1920s by the Soviet authorities.125 In the case of Holocaust takings, however, this doctrine does not always apply in the US as it never recognised the Third Xxxxx as a sovereign state.126 Following the Xxxxxxx litigation (2001-2004), US courts have considered Nazi-looted art cases concerning artefacts not physically in the US, even where post-war acts by recognised states are involved for example post-war restitution decisions.127 The Xxxxxxx litigation dealt with six paintings by Xxxxxx Xxxxx, amongst them the famous Lady in Gold, which had belonged to the Jewish Xxxxx-Xxxxx family, and were confiscated during the Nazi era in Vienna. The Austrian National Gallery came into the possession of the paintings and refused to return them to the heir – by then living in the US – after the War. The case is considered seminal because it opened the doors of the US courts to claimants of Nazi-looted art seeking redress against foreign nations or institutions, in spite of the rule stating that foreign states and their acts are normally exempt from jurisdiction in another state. The implication of the Supreme Court’s 2004 ruling is that, in spite of such immunity as provided for in the US by the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act (FSIA), claims based on 123 Ibid. 124 The value of the painting at the time of trial, awarded on the basis of a breach of an implied warranty: Xxxxxx v List and Perls (1969) New York Court of Appeals, No. 298 NYS 2d 979. Similarly, in the case Xxxxxxxxx v Seattle Art Museum and Xxxxxxxx-Modarco the Xxxxxxxx Gallery in the US was held liable to compensate the museum for its loss of a Matisse painting (L’Odalisque) after restitution to the heirs of Xxxxxxxxx, who lost possession of the Matisse painting by confiscation in Paris in 1941. See <xxxxx://xxxxx.xxxxx.xx/art-adr/ cases-affaires/odalisque-painting-2013-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx-heirs-and-seattle-art-museum>. 125 See the cases in n. 93, above, an accompanying text. The Soviet Government was recognised by the US in 1933. For a recent case concerning Bolshevik takings see Xxxxxxxxxx v The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2012) United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, No. 11-4338. 1...