A New York judge awarded an Austrian-Jewish holocaust victim two paintings that had been seized by Nazis during WWII. Justice Charles E. Ramos rejected a British art dealer’s claim that the paintings in his possession did not qualify for seizure under the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act, which President Barack Obama signed into law in 2016. In his decision, Ramos derisively noted that though the “defendants argue that the HEAR Act is inapplicable, this argument is absurd, as the act is intended to apply to cases precisely like this one, where Nazi-looted art is at issue.”h
See Erik Larson, Nazi-Looted Art Returned To Holocaust Victim’s Heirs In New York, Financial Advisor, April 6, 2018.
Special thanks to Joel C. Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.
