JUSTICE - No. 76

50 No. 76 JUSTICE 40. See Wheeling Steel Corp. v. Fox and Harris v. Balk, supra note 16, and accompanying text. 41. See, e.g., 28 U.S.C. § 1605(h)(2)(a) (special rule for Nazi-era claims). To make these corrections, Congress could amend the FSIA with a provision that states: For purposes of any exception to foreign sovereign immunity stated in section 1605(a), 1. intangible property titled in the name of any defendant or in the name of any entity controlled by any defendant is deemed to be located wherever such defendant or entity may be found; 2. intangible property which has been commingled with other intangible property in an account is deemed to remain in such account until a value equal to the commingled intangible property is thereafter withdrawn from that account either for payment of a claim related to such intangible property or for deposit into a different account restricted to payment of any such claim; and 3. a stateless person is deemed to be an alien under international law. The first clause of this proposed amendment clarifies the nexus requirement when intangible property is involved and is patterned after section 1605A(g)(1)(c) (applicable in terrorism cases). The clause is also consistent with numerous instances when intangible property is deemed to be located where its owner is found and thus is compatible with established legal authorities.40 Under the second clause, a foreign state’s treasury, like Hungary’s, into which the proceeds of expropriated property have been deposited, would satisfy the nexus requirement if treasury funds are held in an account in the United States or spent there. Lastly, the third clause would, consistent with international law, enable stateless persons to pursue their claims for expropriated property in American courts even though they lack a remedy under international law. Congress should enact these clarifications of the expropriation exception to rectify the courts’ undue restrictions of it. Hungary has evaded compensating Holocaust victims far too long. Its own legal system has failed to provide meaningful compensation. But Congress has shown a special sensitivity in allowing Holocaust-related claims to be adjudicated on the merits.41 Revision of the FSIA as proposed here remains the last accessible avenue for the victims or their heirs to achieve some measure of justice for the evil that was committed in the Holocaust.n David H. Weinstein, a member of the Pennsylvania Bar, is Senior Counsel to Weinstein Kitchenoff & Asher LLC of Ardmore, Pennsylvania. He received his B.A. and J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, and was sequentially law clerk to two judges of the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Together with L. Marc Zell of Jerusalem, Israel, Charles S. Fax of Bethesda, Maryland, and Paul G. Gaston of Washington, D.C., he was co-lead counsel for the asserted plaintiff class in Rosalie Simon et al. v. Republic of Hungary et al., C.A. No. 10-cv-1770 (D.D.C.). Shay Dvoretzky and Parker Rider-Longmaid of Washington, D.C., were Supreme Court counsel for the plaintiffs in Republic of Hungary v. Simon.

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