Firm News

Partner Jonathan Freiman was quoted in the Apollo article, “Don’t Mention the War? It’s Not an Option for Museums or the Art Market.”

Jonathan discusses proposed changes to the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery (HEAR) Act of 2025. He explains that the 2025 HEAR Act would eliminate the doctrine of laches in cases claiming that art was seized or sold under duress during the Nazi era. Laches, he notes, provides a defense when a plaintiff has unreasonably delayed bringing a claim and caused prejudice to a defendant. “This sounds technical,” Jonathan explains, “but it is central to justice. The passage of time can prejudice defendants because access to truth fades: witnesses die, documents disappear and all that is left are second-hand stories.”

Jonathan also expressed his concern that the pending Act would allow claimants to sue foreign nations and museums in the US if they believe that they have Nazi-looted art in their collections, something that the Supreme Court case rejected in the Philipp v. Germany case that Jonathan won. He notes that “International law doesn’t allow this. It requires nations to give foreign sovereigns immunity from being sued for sovereign acts. The sponsors of the new bill are wrong to flout international law and are risking [unforeseen] international conflicts.” He continues, “This is even more problematic because in the US, most of the classic Nazi-looted art situations – that work was pulled off a wall or they forced someone to sell for a fraction of its value – are mostly over and done with. Reputable museums, dealers and collectors in the US now restitute work when they find evidence, so the cases that are coming up today tend to be weaker.”

To read the full article, click here.