Austria and Two Vienna Museums Say US Nazi-Loot Law Goes Too Far
The Republic of Austria and two Vienna museums, the Albertina Museum and the Leopold Museum Foundation, have told a United States court that a 2025 change to a law on Nazi-looted art overreaches what Congress may do. The defendants made that case in a filing reported by ARTnews on October 31, 2026.
The filing answers two friend-of-the-court briefs, known as amicus briefs. These are documents filed by people or groups who are not parties to a case, offering the judge a view. One came from the Department of Justice. The other came from Senators Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, and John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas.
The senators filed their brief on September 25, 2026, in support of Holocaust survivors and victims seeking the return of art taken by the Nazis. They argued that the law, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act (HEAR Act), is constitutional and does not violate the Tenth Amendment. That amendment to the US Constitution leaves powers not given to the federal government to the states, as Cornyn's office reported.
Congress signed the law in 2016, and it was set to expire in 2026. The 2025 amendments remove that end date, so it now has no expiry. One defence the amendments took away is laches, a argument that a valid claim should be dismissed because the person bringing it waited too long.
The three defendants say the amended law goes beyond Congress's powers. Their filing states that in passing it, Congress exceeded its constitutional bounds. They repeat their claim that the update breaks Article III of the Constitution, which sets out the powers of federal courts, as well as the Tenth Amendment.
They also argue that the HEAR Act leaves the practical work of returning looted art to the individual states. In their view, that differs from a federal restitution law, the kind of national rule that federal copyright law provides.
The case behind the filing is a lawsuit brought by Timothy Reif, a descendant of Fritz Grünbaum. Grünbaum was a Jewish cabaret performer and art collector. He was killed in a Nazi death camp in 1941.
Reif wants several works by the Austrian painter Egon Schiele returned. He says the Nazis took them when they seized Grünbaum's collection. The defendants dispute that. They argue the works were part of a group of pieces that Grünbaum's sister-in-law exported from Austria in the 1930s, and that were later sold to a Swiss dealer in the 1950s.
Questions like these decide who can bring a claim, where, and how long a family has to pursue it. The filing does not settle the case. It sets out the defendants' position on the law that governs it.
