Month: January 2016

In March 2015, I had reported a decision of the Federal Administrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht) dealing with an application to delete the entry of a painting from the Lost Art database, once it had been located. Setting aside the decisions of the First Instance Court and the Administrative Court of Appeal (Oberverwaltungsgericht), the Federal Administrative Court had decided that locating the painting was not enough for the entry to be deleted from the Lost Art database. It widened the mandate of the database and held that the painting can remain registered on the database as long as there is no clarity as to ownership (“Die Suchmeldung ist nicht schon mit dem Auffinden des Gemäldes rechtswidrig geworden, weil noch keine Klarheit über das endgültige Schicksal des Bildes besteht.”). The judgment did not convince me legally, nor did I think it did the parties a service. Read More