On April 13, 2026, President Trump signed into law S. 1884, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025. The bill passed the Senate unanimously in December 2025 and the House unanimously in March 2026. The law is the most significant congressional action on Nazi-era art restitution since the original HEAR Act of 2016, and it carries implications that extend well beyond the museum sector and the Holocaust-era context in which it was drafted.
This alert summarizes the statute; explains why it matters to both claimants and institutional holders; and offers a point we think is usually missed in the first wave of commentary on laws of this kind: property-claims practice is a marathon. The clients who prevail, whether they are heirs pursuing a claim or institutions defending one, are almost always the clients who began documenting, organizing, and preparing years before anyone else understood the case was ripe.
The HEAR Act of 2025, while narrowly drafted to reach Nazi-era art and cultural-property claims, is the second time in roughly six decades that Congress has statutorily overridden a Supreme Court decision that had expanded prudential defenses against foreign-sovereign expropriation claims. HEAR does not apply to those claims, but the pattern is worth watching, and clients with property-claim exposure should understand that the legal environment is more dynamic than it appears.
What the Statute Does
Permanent statute of limitations. The 2016 HEAR Act created a uniform federal six-year statute of limitations for Nazi-era art claims, running from the claimant’s actual discovery of the artwork’s identity and location and sufficient facts to support a claim; the 2016 Act was set to sunset on December 31, 2026. The new Act eliminates the sunset. The six-year actual-discovery rule is now permanent federal law.
Express override of Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp. The Act directs federal courts to exercise jurisdiction over claims brought under the expropriation exception to the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1605(a)(3), “without regard to the nationality or citizenship of the alleged victim.” This is a direct congressional rebuke of the Supreme Court’s 2021 decision in Philipp, 141 S. Ct. 703, which held that the so-called domestic-takings rule barred FSIA expropriation claims where a foreign sovereign took its own nationals’ property, including from Jewish victims whom the Nazi regime had stripped of German citizenship. The commercial-activity nexus requirement of § 1605(a)(3) remains; the nationality bar does not.
Nationwide service of process. The Act authorizes nationwide service of process in these cases, materially expanding the personal-jurisdiction reach available to claimants in federal court.
Elimination of prudential defenses. The Act bars, for this narrow category of claims, the Act of State Doctrine, international comity abstention, forum non conveniens, and laches. The 2016 Act did not address laches; the Second Circuit confirmed that gap in Zuckerman v. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 928 F.3d 186 (2d Cir. 2019). The new Act closes it and goes further by reaching the Act of State and comity, both of which have been deployed by foreign sovereigns and institutional defendants to avoid adjudication on the merits.
Express statement of congressional intent. The Act provides that “the intent of this Act is to permit claims to recover Nazi-looted art to be brought.” That language is drafted to be cited in the first motion to dismiss a defendant files post-enactment; it forecloses a repeat of the Philipp majority’s reading of the 2016 Act as a statute aimed primarily at out-of-court resolution.
The Broader Signal: Property Claims Against Sovereigns
The new statute is narrowly drafted; it reaches Nazi-era claims, not every expropriation case. But the doctrinal signal is broader.
This is the second time in roughly six decades that Congress has stepped in to override a Supreme Court decision restricting U.S. courts’ adjudication of foreign-sovereign takings of property with a U.S. nexus; in 1964, the Second Hickenlooper Amendment, 22 U.S.C. § 2370(e), overrode Banco Nacional de Cuba v. Sabbatino, 376 U.S. 398, to permit U.S. courts to reach Castro-era Cuban expropriation cases despite the Act of State Doctrine. The HEAR Act of 2025 does the same thing, functionally, for a different category of victims.
For our clients with property-claim exposure involving Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, China, Iran, and other jurisdictions where state-directed confiscation is a live issue, the HEAR Act is worth attention even though it does not apply to your claim. It reflects a congressional willingness to correct prudential-defense overreach that, historically, migrates. The architecture for future statutory corrections in other contexts is now on the books in two separate categories of law.
The Marathon: What Potential Claimants and Institutions Should Be Doing Now
Property-claims practice rewards patience and preparation. The cases that resolve favorably, whether through litigation, diplomatic settlement, certified-claims processes, or private negotiation, are almost always cases in which someone built a careful, contemporaneous record long before the opportunity for resolution arrived. The claims that fail do so for predictable reasons: gaps in provenance, stale valuations, lost witnesses, undocumented chains of title, and missed deadlines imposed by statutes most people did not know existed.
For potential claimants and heirs. The fact that the HEAR Act runs from actual discovery means the clock has not necessarily started, but once it starts, six years is not long. Families with suspected losses from the 1933-1945 period, and families with suspected post-war losses from other state-directed takings, should be organizing now.
That means locating and preserving family records, correspondence, photographs, insurance documentation, and exhibition histories; commissioning provenance research where funds allow; registering known and suspected works with the Art Loss Register and comparable databases; and maintaining a litigation-grade file of every communication with museums, dealers, auction houses, or foreign government agencies.
Heirs in particular should document the chain of succession with the same care an estate lawyer would apply to a substantial inheritance; these cases are frequently lost or settled badly because the claimant could not prove standing.
For museums, galleries, auction houses, and lenders. The new law substantially raises the litigation stakes for works with provenance gaps from the 1933-1945 period; prior dismissals on Philipp, laches, or comity grounds will not be precedent under the new regime. Institutions should undertake a systematic review of collections, loans, and recent acquisitions with any provenance vulnerability; ensure that acquisition files, loan agreements, and deaccession records are complete and retrievable; confirm that insurance policies address restitution and defense costs; and, where appropriate, consider proactive engagement with potential claimants before litigation crystallizes. Restitution handled early and privately is almost always cheaper and less damaging than restitution litigated publicly.
For all holders of claims against sovereigns. The common thread across Holocaust-era claims, Cuban certified claims, and contemporary expropriation cases is this: the factual record made in the first five years determines what is achievable in the next twenty-five. Valuations should be current and supportable. Witness declarations should be taken while witnesses remain available. Government correspondence should be preserved in complete, dated chains. FOIA requests, where relevant, should be filed early and often because the productions come slowly.
How Poblete Tamargo Can Help You
Poblete Tamargo’s property-claims practice spans Holocaust-era restitution contexts, Cuban certified claims, and contemporary expropriation matters involving Venezuela, Nicaragua, and other jurisdictions.
We advise claimants, heirs, and institutional holders on the full arc of these cases: factual record development, provenance and chain-of-title analysis, FSIA jurisdictional strategy, FOIA and administrative record work, coordination with the State Department, Treasury, Commerce, and relevant congressional offices, and disciplined engagement with opposing sovereigns and counterparties. We approach these matters as long-horizon engagements because they are.
If the HEAR Act affects a claim you are considering, a collection or loan you are responsible for, or a broader property-claims posture involving any sovereign, reply to this email to arrange a confidential consultation. The White House signing statement is available here.