Urban Art Association

Sale of Tribal Masks in Paris, by Coach on Apr 13, 2013 21:41:52 GMT 1,

Apr 13, 2013 21:11:23 GMT 1 met said:

Apr 13, 2013 10:18:15 GMT 1 Coach said:

Met, you are quite right. Posting after too many vinos again!
The court did say that the items were legally owned. My point was that I suspect that the floodgates argument was the reason behind reaching such a conclusion.

The impression I get from the BBC article is that the Paris court's ruling was largely restricted to the question of legal title.  Assuming that's correct, then after examining the facts and evidence, the court will have just applied existing French contract law.  On this particular issue there would have been no need to take anything else into account, and a floodgates or other public policy argument wouldn't have been relevant.

Although unlikely, if the court's ruling on title is legally unsound — e.g. if the judge(s) applied the law incorrectly or the ruling is based on undisclosed, non-legal considerations — the fact the lawyers representing Survival International / the Hopi tribe didn't immediately appeal the decision would suggest they're either incompetent or corrupt.  I've been privy neither to the evidence of ownership presented in court nor to the text of the ruling itself, so it would be unfair of me to speculate here.

A separate point worth noting, however, is that France (at least in recent years and despite decades of virtual inaction) has been increasingly proactive in returning Nazi-plundered art to legitimate Jewish owners or their descendants.  A number of articles published a couple of months ago confirmed renewed and more transparent restitution efforts being made in relation to some 2,000 works, and the expected impact on the existing collections of French national museums like the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay.  It's arguable therefore that governmental or legislative policy based purely on a desire to avoid the risk of opening floodgates doesn't always prevail, especially where it will lead to injustice or perceived injustice.

Hi Met,
You clearly have some experience of the courts. 
In my opinion, courts will sometimes decide what decision they want/need to reach, and then work out the legal basis for reaching that decision.
The interested parties made it very clear that the floodgates argument was extremely concerning to them!

"However, auctioneer Gilles Neret-Minet of auction house Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou had warned that a ruling to stop the sale could potentially force French museums to empty out their collections."


""If we lose this case, there will be no more sales of objects of indigenous art in France," he said before the court ruling."


"They said blocking the sale would have implications for the trade of indigenous art and could potentially force French museums to hand back collections they have bought."

I remain of the view that this was the motivation behind the decision - all just my opinion, of course.

Apr 13, 2013 21:11:23 GMT 1 met said:

Apr 13, 2013 10:18:15 GMT 1 Coach said:

Met, you are quite right. Posting after too many vinos again!
The court did say that the items were legally owned. My point was that I suspect that the floodgates argument was the reason behind reaching such a conclusion.

The impression I get from the BBC article is that the Paris court's ruling was largely restricted to the question of legal title.  Assuming that's correct, then after examining the facts and evidence, the court will have just applied existing French contract law.  On this particular issue there would have been no need to take anything else into account, and a floodgates or other public policy argument wouldn't have been relevant.

Although unlikely, if the court's ruling on title is legally unsound — e.g. if the judge(s) applied the law incorrectly or the ruling is based on undisclosed, non-legal considerations — the fact the lawyers representing Survival International / the Hopi tribe didn't immediately appeal the decision would suggest they're either incompetent or corrupt.  I've been privy neither to the evidence of ownership presented in court nor to the text of the ruling itself, so it would be unfair of me to speculate here.

A separate point worth noting, however, is that France (at least in recent years and despite decades of virtual inaction) has been increasingly proactive in returning Nazi-plundered art to legitimate Jewish owners or their descendants.  A number of articles published a couple of months ago confirmed renewed and more transparent restitution efforts being made in relation to some 2,000 works, and the expected impact on the existing collections of French national museums like the Louvre and Musée d'Orsay.  It's arguable therefore that governmental or legislative policy based purely on a desire to avoid the risk of opening floodgates doesn't always prevail, especially where it will lead to injustice or perceived injustice.

Hi Met,
You clearly have some experience of the courts. 
In my opinion, courts will sometimes decide what decision they want/need to reach, and then work out the legal basis for reaching that decision.
The interested parties made it very clear that the floodgates argument was extremely concerning to them!

"However, auctioneer Gilles Neret-Minet of auction house Neret-Minet Tessier & Sarrou had warned that a ruling to stop the sale could potentially force French museums to empty out their collections."


""If we lose this case, there will be no more sales of objects of indigenous art in France," he said before the court ruling."


"They said blocking the sale would have implications for the trade of indigenous art and could potentially force French museums to hand back collections they have bought."

I remain of the view that this was the motivation behind the decision - all just my opinion, of course.