Nederlandse Rijnbank v Mühlig Union, Teplitz-Schönau

• Court: Obsolete Court (Netherlands)
• Docket Number: Case No. 27
• Date: 02 Junio 1947

Holland, Council for the Restoration of Legal Rights, Division for Judicial Settlement.

Case No. 27

Nederlandse Rijnbank, Amsterdam

and

Mühlig Union, Teplitz-Schönau.

Foreign States — Immunities of — Commercial and Industrial Undertakings — Petition in Holland for Restoration of Legal Rights after the Liberation — Transformation of Czech Company into Government Undertaking — Jurisdiction of Netherlands Court.

The Facts.—The petitioner, the Nederlandse Rijnbank of Amsterdam (in liquidation) was in 1940 a Jewish banking house. In 1941 the German occupation authorities in Holland placed it under compulsory administration. The Rijnbank held shares in a Czech company to the total value of Kc. 1,200,000. These shares had been deposited with a bank in Prague where they had had to be declared as Jewish property. In May 1943 the Treuhänder (trustee), one Wormer, sold the shares for RM. 105,000 (with “some” extra commission for himself) to Mühlig Union Glasindustrie of Teplitz-Schönau (Czechoslovakia). The price, however, was not paid to the Rijnbank, but to a Berlin firm, Arnhold Brothers, likewise a Jewish undertaking, said to be the creditor of the Dutch bank. The shares were duly delivered to the Mühlig Union. After the liberation of Holland the Rijnbank came under the administration of the Netherlands “Beheers-Instituut”. A petition was presented on its behalf to the Judicial Division, Amsterdam, of the Council for the Restoration of Legal Rights, a special tribunal set up after the war (see case No. 115 (In re Policeman Balster)), asking that the whole transaction should be annulled. Mühlig Union opposed the jurisdiction of the Dutch tribunal on grounds which appear from the judgment.

Held: that the petition for the restoration of the original rights must be granted. The Netherlands Emergency Decree No. E. 100 regulated in general terms the possibilities open to persons for regaining their legal rights if they had been deprived of them under undue influence from the enemy or under the pressure of the circumstances of war, provided that...