Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016

Summary: . The expanded summary of the House passed version is repeated here.) Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016 (Sec. 5) This bill allows civil claims or causes of action for the recovery of artwork or certain other property lost between January 1, 1933, and December 31, 1945, because of Nazi persecution to be commenced within six years after the claimant's actual discovery of: (1) the identity and location of the artwork or other property, and (2) a possessory interest in the artwork or property. Such statutory limitation period of six years after actual discovery preempts any other statutes of limitation or defenses relating to the passage of time. Preexisting claims known by a claimant before enactment of this bill shall be considered discovered on the date of this bill's enactment if they were barred before, or not barred on, the date of enactment. This bill applies to claims or actions that are: (1) pending on the date of this bill's enactment, including an action for which the time to file an appeal has not expired; or (2) filed after enactment but before 2027. But the bill does not apply to claims barred on the day before enactment of this bill if: (1) the claimant had knowledge on or after January 1, 1999, and (2) six years have passed from the date such claimant acquired such knowledge and during which time the claim was not barred by a statute of limitations.

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ``Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery 
Act of 2016''.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
    Congress finds the following:
        (1) It is estimated that the Nazis confiscated or otherwise 
    misappropriated hundreds of thousands of works of art and other 
    property throughout Europe as part of their genocidal campaign 
    against the Jewish people and other persecuted groups. This has 
    been described as the ``greatest displacement of art in human 
    history''.
        (2) Following World War II, the United States and its allies 
    attempted to return the stolen artworks to their countries of 
    origin. Despite these efforts, many works of art were never 
    reunited with their owners. Some of the art has since been 
    discovered in the United States.
        (3) In 1998, the United States convened a conference with 43 
    other nations in Washington, DC, known as the Washington 
    Conference, which produced Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art. One 
    of these principles is that ``steps should be taken expeditiously 
    to achieve a just and fair solution'' to claims involving such art 
    that has not been restituted if the owners or their heirs can be 
    identified.
        (4) The same year, Congress enacted the Holocaust Victims 
    Redress Act (Public Law 105-158, 112 Stat. 15), which expressed the 
    sense of Congress that ``all governments should undertake good 
    faith efforts to facilitate the return of private and public 
    property, such as works of art, to the rightful owners in cases 
    where assets were confiscated from the claimant during the period 
    of Nazi rule and there is reasonable proof that the claimant is the 
    rightful owner.''.
        (5) In 2009, the United States participated in a Holocaust Era 
    Assets Conference in Prague, Czech Republic, with 45 other nations. 
    At the conclusion of this conference, the participating nations 
    issued the Terezin Declaration, which reaffirmed the 1998 
    Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art and urged 
    all participants ``to ensure that their legal systems or 
    alternative processes, while taking into account the different 
    legal traditions, facilitate just and fair solutions with regard to 
    Nazi-confiscated and looted art, and to make certain that claims to 
    recover such art are resolved expeditiously and based on the facts 
    and merits of the claims and all the relevant documents submitted 
    by all parties.''. The Declaration also urged participants to 
    ``consider all relevant issues when applying various legal 
    provisions that may impede the restitution of art and cultural 
    property, in order to achieve just and fair solutions, as well as 
    alternative dispute resolution, where appropriate under law.''.
        (6) Victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs have taken 
    legal action in the United States to recover Nazi-confiscated art. 
    These lawsuits face significant procedural obstacles partly due to 
    State statutes of limitations, which typically bar claims within 
    some limited number of years from either the date of the loss or 
    the date that the claim should have been discovered. In some cases, 
    this means that the claims expired before World War II even ended. 
    (See, e.g., Detroit Institute of Arts v. Ullin, No. 06-10333, 2007 
    WL 1016996 (E.D. Mich. Mar. 31, 2007).) The unique and horrific 
    circumstances of World War II and the Holocaust make statutes of 
    limitations especially burdensome to the victims and their heirs. 
    Those seeking recovery of Nazi-confiscated art must painstakingly 
    piece together their cases from a fragmentary historical record 
    ravaged by persecution, war, and genocide. This costly process 
    often cannot be done within the time constraints imposed by 
    existing law.
        (7) Federal legislation is needed because the only court that 
    has considered the question held that the Constitution prohibits 
    States from making exceptions to their statutes of limitations to 
    accommodate claims involving the recovery of Nazi-confiscated art. 
    In Von Saher v. Norton Simon Museum of Art, 592 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 
    2009), the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit 
    invalidated a California law that extended the State statute of 
    limitations for claims seeking recovery of Holocaust-era artwork. 
    The Court held that the law was an unconstitutional infringement of 
    the Federal Government's exclusive authority over foreign affairs, 
    which includes the resolution of war-related disputes. In light of 
    this precedent, the enactment of a Federal law is necessary to 
    ensure that claims to Nazi-confiscated art are adjudicated in 
    accordance with United States policy as expressed in the Washington 
    Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, the Holocaust 
    Victims Redress Act, and the Terezin Declaration.
        (8) While litigation may be used to resolve claims to recover 
    Nazi-confiscated art, it is the sense of Congress that the private 
    resolution of claims by parties involved, on the merits and through 
    the use of alternative dispute resolution such as mediation panels 
    established for this purpose with the aid of experts in provenance 
    research and history, will yield just and fair resolutions in a 
    more efficient and predictable manner.
SEC. 3. PURPOSES.
    The purposes of this Act are the following:
        (1) To ensure that laws governing claims to Nazi-confiscated 
    art and other property further United States policy as set forth in 
    the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, the 
    Holocaust Victims Redress Act, and the Terezin Declaration.
        (2) To ensure that claims to artwork and other property stolen 
    or misappropriated by the Nazis are not unfairly barred by statutes 
    of limitations but are resolved in a just and fair manner.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
    In this Act:
        (1) Actual discovery.--The term ``actual discovery'' means 
    knowledge.
        (2) Artwork or other property.--The term ``artwork or other 
    property'' means--
            (A) pictures, paintings, and drawings;
            (B) statuary art and sculpture;
            (C) engravings, prints, lithographs, and works of graphic 
        art;
            (D) applied art and original artistic assemblages and 
        montages;
            (E) books, archives, musical objects and manuscripts 
        (including musical manuscripts and sheets), and sound, 
        photographic, and cinematographic archives and mediums; and
            (F) sacred and ceremonial objects and Judaica.
        (3) Covered period.--The term ``covered period'' means the 
    period beginning on January 1, 1933, and ending on December 31, 
    1945.
        (4) Knowledge.--The term ``knowledge'' means having actual 
    knowledge of a fact or circumstance or sufficient information with 
    regard to a relevant fact or circumstance to amount to actual 
    knowledge thereof.
        (5) Nazi persecution.--The term ``Nazi persecution'' means any 
    persecution of a specific group of individuals based on Nazi 
    ideology by the Government of Germany, its allies or agents, 
    members of the Nazi Party, or their agents or associates, during 
    the covered period.
SEC. 5. STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS.
    (a) In General.--Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal or 
State law or any defense at law relating to the passage of time, and 
except as otherwise provided in this section, a civil claim or cause of 
action against a defendant to recover any artwork or other property 
that was lost during the covered period because of Nazi persecution may 
be commenced not later than 6 years after the actual discovery by the 
claimant or the agent of the claimant of--
        (1) the identity and location of the artwork or other property; 
    and
        (2) a possessory interest of the claimant in the artwork or 
    other property.
    (b) Possible Misidentification.--For purposes of subsection (a)(1), 
in a case in which the artwork or other property is one of a group of 
substantially similar multiple artworks or other property, actual 
discovery of the identity and location of the artwork or other property 
shall be deemed to occur on the date on which there are facts 
sufficient to form a substantial basis to believe that the artwork or 
other property is the artwork or other property that was lost.
    (c) Preexisting Claims.--Except as provided in subsection (e), a 
civil claim or cause of action described in subsection (a) shall be 
deemed to have been actually discovered on the date of enactment of 
this Act if--
        (1) before the date of enactment of this Act--
            (A) a claimant had knowledge of the elements set forth in 
        subsection (a); and
            (B) the civil claim or cause of action was barred by a 
        Federal or State statute of limitations; or
        (2)(A) before the date of enactment of this Act, a claimant had 
    knowledge of the elements set forth in subsection (a); and
        (B) on the date of enactment of this Act, the civil claim or 
    cause of action was not barred by a Federal or State statute of 
    limitations.
    (d) Applicability.--Subsection (a) shall apply to any civil claim 
or cause of action that is--
        (1) pending in any court on the date of enactment of this Act, 
    including any civil claim or cause of action that is pending on 
    appeal or for which the time to file an appeal has not expired; or
        (2) filed during the period beginning on the date of enactment 
    of this Act and ending on December 31, 2026.
    (e) Exception.--Subsection (a) shall not apply to any civil claim 
or cause of action barred on the day before the date of enactment of 
this Act by a Federal or State statute of limitations if--
        (1) the claimant or a predecessor-in-interest of the claimant 
    had knowledge of the elements set forth in subsection (a) on or 
    after January 1, 1999; and
        (2) not less than 6 years have passed from the date such 
    claimant or predecessor-in-interest acquired such knowledge and 
    during which time the civil claim or cause of action was not barred 
    by a Federal or State statute of limitations.
    (f) Rule of Construction.--Nothing in this Act shall be construed 
to create a civil claim or cause of action under Federal or State law.
    (g) Sunset.--This Act shall cease to have effect on January 1, 
2027, except that this Act shall continue to apply to any civil claim 
or cause of action described in subsection (a) that is pending on 
January 1, 2027. Any civil claim or cause of action commenced on or 
after that date to recover artwork or other property described in this 
Act shall be subject to any applicable Federal or State statute of 
limitations or any other Federal or State defense at law relating to 
the passage of time.

                               Speaker of the House of Representatives.

                            Vice President of the United States and    
                                               President of the Senate.