Opinion ID: 3020161
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Berlin Accords

Text: The documents establishing the Foundation, collectively referred to as the Berlin Accords or the Berlin Agreements, consist of the Joint Statement, the Executive Agreement between the United States and Germany, and the Foundation Law. The Joint Statement—formally titled “The Joint Statement on occasion of the final plenary meeting concluding international talks on the preparation of the Foundation 11 ‘Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future’”—sets forth the goal of the Foundation, which is to “provide dignified payments to hundreds of thousands of survivors and to others who suffered from wrongs during the National Socialist era and World War II.” Preamble, para. 12. The Joint Statement commits the German government and German industry to a DM 10 billion capitalization, and places responsibility for collecting the German companies’ share on the German Foundation Industrial Initiative. Particularly significant for this case, Section 4(d) of the Joint Statement provides, in part: German company funds will continue to be collected on a schedule and in a manner that will ensure that the interest earned thereon before and after their delivery to the Foundation will reach at least 100 million DM. The second document of the Berlin Accords, the Executive Agreement, outlines the United States and German governments’ commitment to the Foundation. It obligates the United States Executive, in all cases for which it is notified of a claim against a German company arising out of the WWII era, to file a statement of its foreign policy interests with the court in which the claim is pending, stating that United States’ foreign policy interests favor resolution through the Foundation. Specifically, Article 2(1) of the Executive Agreement provides: The United States shall, in all cases in which the United States is notified that a claim described in article 1(1) has been asserted in a court in the 12 United States, inform its courts through a Statement of Interest, in accordance with Annex B, and, consistent therewith, as it otherwise considers appropriate, that it would be in the foreign policy interests of the United States for the Foundation to be the exclusive remedy and forum for resolving such claims asserted against German companies as defined in Annex C and that dismissal of such cases would be in its foreign policy interest. See also Art. 3(4) (“The United States shall take appropriate steps to oppose any challenge to the sovereign immunity of the Federal Republic of Germany with respect to any claim that may be asserted against the Federal Republic of Germany concerning the consequences of the National Socialist era and World War II.”). Article 1(1) describes the type of “claim” that triggers the filling of a Statement of Interest: The parties agree that the Foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” covers, and that it would be in the their interests for the Foundation to be the exclusive remedy and forum for the resolution of, all claims that have been or may be asserted against German companies arising from the National Socialist era and World War II. The Executive Agreement also commits the German government to oversight of the Foundation. See id., Art. 1(3) 13 (“The Federal Republic of Germany assures that the Foundation will be subject to legal supervision by a German governmental authority[.]”). The final document of the Berlin Accords, the Foundation Law, is codified under German law. The Foundation Law went into effect on August 12, 2000, establishing the Foundation as a legal entity and an instrumentality of the German government, subject to initial oversight by the Ministry of Finance. Foundation Law § 8(1). It specifies that DM 5 billion of the Foundation’s funding would be contributed by the German government, and the other DM 5 billion through the German Foundation Industrial Initiative. Id. §3(3). It establishes a 27-member Board of Trustees and a three-member Board of Directors. Id. §§ 5–6. The Board of Trustees is to make decisions on “all fundamental matters” relating to the Foundation, id. § 5(5), and to perform roughly the same function a board of directors would perform in a United States corporation. The United States is permitted to appoint two members to the Board of Trustees: a representative of the United States government and an attorney to represent the interests of the victims. The Board of Directors is to represent the Foundation in judicial and extrajudicial matters, manage the day-to-day business of the Foundation, and implement the decisions of the Board of Trustees, id. § 6(3), and in this way to function like the officers of a United States corporation.