# Restitution in 2026: The Year Delay Stopped Working > On 3 April 2026 a New York court decided a Nazi-era laches defence on the facts. Ten days later Congress abolished laches outright, and Germany moved the same fight out of court. > The Study - 2026-08-02 > Canonical HTML: https://iconotheca.com/study/restitution-2026-the-year-delay-stopped-working/ ## Key points - Greason v Nahmad, 2026 NY Slip Op 50461(U), decided 3 April 2026, awarded possession of Modigliani's Seated Man With a Cane to the estate of Oscar Stettiner on a documentary chain running from the 1930 Venice Biennale to a French nullity order of 22 November 1946. - Public Law 119-82, approved 13 April 2026, bars laches, adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, usucapion, act of state, international comity, forum non conveniens and prudential exhaustion in Nazi-era claims, and reaches claims already pending on appeal. - The same statute deleted the 2016 Act's sunset, which would have ended it on 1 January 2027, and downgraded Congress's endorsement of restitution panels from processes that will yield just and fair resolutions to processes that may, in some circumstances, do so. - Germany's arbitration court, live since 1 December 2025, can be invoked by a claimant only against an institution that has lodged a standing offer; the published register named 235 institutions and public bodies when counted on 4 August 2026. ## A chain of possession, established link by link ## The catalogue entry was wrong in three ways, and the errors all pointed one way ## Laches was decided on the facts ten days before Congress abolished it ## What Public Law 119-82 changed, including the part nobody quoted ## Germany moved the same dispute out of court, and put the condition in the small print The two systems have changed places. The United States has stripped its courts of every doctrine that let a possessor win on the calendar, and quietly withdrawn its preference for the panels it once recommended. Germany, the Netherlands and now Switzerland have moved the same dispute into standing tribunals whose reach depends on a register of institutions bound in advance. Both turn on the quality of the paper. Greason v Nahmad was won on a Biennale label, a shipping register, a nullity order and a bailiff's report, against a catalogue entry wrong in three places for fifty years. The defences have been legislated away. The documents have not, and they are the whole of the case. ## Questions **Can a possessor still plead laches in a Nazi-era art claim in a United States court?** Not in a claim that is otherwise timely under the HEAR Act. Public Law 119-82 provides that defences based on the passage of time, including laches, adverse possession, acquisitive prescription and usucapion, may not be applied. It reaches claims that were already pending on 13 April 2026, including claims on appeal. **Does the HEAR Act still expire at the end of 2026?** No. The 2016 Act was to cease to have effect on 1 January 2027 and its filing window closed on 31 December 2026. Public Law 119-82 struck the sunset and replaced the window with claims filed on or after the date of enactment. **Can a claimant force a German museum into arbitration?** Only where the institution has lodged a standing offer with the Berlin service desk, or where it consents in the individual case. The register of standing offers is published and named 235 institutions and public bodies when it was counted on 4 August 2026. An institution absent from the register cannot be compelled. **What made the Modigliani chain provable when so many are not?** A Biennale label still glued to the stretcher naming the owner and his home address, a 1930 shipping register, and a French court order of 22 November 1946 declaring the 1944 sale void and naming the buyer whose heirs consigned the picture in 1996. The court described the record as unusually strong for a case of this type. ## Sources - [1] Greason v Nahmad, 2026 NY Slip Op 50461(U), Supreme Court, New York County, Joel M. Cohen J., decided 3 April 2026, Index No. 650646/2014. PRIMARY. The 1930 Biennale evidence, the stretcher label, the 3 July 1944 sale and the 16,000 franc figure, the Civil Court of the Seine order of 22 November 1946, the bailiff's report of 22 March 1947, the 1996 Christie's provenance and its three errors, the Sotheby's 2008 cataloguing and the Wildenstein note, the laches analysis and the decretal paragraphs. - [2] Public Law 119-82, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025, 140 Stat. 751, approved 13 April 2026 (S. 1884). PRIMARY. The barred time defences and non-merits defences, the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act provision, the striking of the sunset, the amended findings naming Zuckerman, Cassirer and Von Saher, the changed language on alternative dispute resolution, applicability to pending claims, severability, and the Senate and House passage dates. - [3] Public Law 114-308, Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, 130 Stat. 1524, approved 16 December 2016. PRIMARY. The six-year actual-discovery rule, the 31 December 2026 filing window, the sunset of 1 January 2027 and the original findings on alternative dispute resolution. - [4] Der Beauftragte der Bundesregierung fuer Kultur und Medien, 'Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit NS-Raubgut', page state 1 December 2025. PRIMARY. The March 2024 agreement between the federal government, the Laender and the municipal associations, the start of work on 1 December 2025 and the replacement of the Beratende Kommission, unilateral access, binding awards, the assessment framework, the five-member panels, the register of 36 arbitrators and the joint presidency. - [5] Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit NS-Raubgut, news and welcome page. PRIMARY. The condition that a claimant may begin an arbitration only where the holding institution has lodged a standing offer or consents in the individual case, and the note of 26 May 2026 recording that the Swiss commission for historically burdened cultural heritage began work on 1 March 2026. - [6] Schiedsgerichtsbarkeit NS-Raubgut, 'Standing Offers'. PRIMARY. The published register of institutions bound in advance; counted by this desk on 4 August 2026 at 235 institutions and public bodies, six federal, the remainder under fifteen Land headings. - [7] Restitutiecommissie, binding opinion RC 3.141, 'Painting with Houses by Wassily Kandinsky', advice date 22 October 2018. PRIMARY. The Dutch binding opinion refusing restitution to the Lewenstein heirs, and the parties to it. - [8] Transnational Litigation Blog, William S. Dodge, 'Cassirer's Case Continues', 14 March 2025. The Supreme Court's order of Monday 10 March 2025 granting, vacating and remanding the Ninth Circuit's judgment for the Spanish foundation in the light of Assembly Bill 2867. - [9] The Art Newspaper, Elena Goukassian, 'Judge rules dealer David Nahmad must return $30m Nazi-looted Modigliani', 6 April 2026. The reported 1996 purchase price of USD 3.2m, the storage of the painting in Switzerland, and the reported account that Stettiner left Paris in 1939, which the judgment does not support. - [10] The Art Newspaper, Elena Goukassian, 'Dealer David Nahmad given 30 days to return Nazi-looted Modigliani painting', 17 June 2026. The ruling of 16 June 2026 setting a thirty-day deadline for return, and the statement from the possessors' lawyers that they will appeal. - [11] The Art Newspaper, Elena Goukassian, 'David Nahmad maintains that his Modigliani was not looted by the Nazis', 5 May 2026. The May 2026 motion to review founded on eyewitness affirmations and on Marc Restellini's Modigliani catalogue raisonne, and Restellini's own statement that the Van der Klip provenance is italicised in his catalogue because it rested on unverified sources.