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City of Gotha and Federal Republic of Germany v Sotheby's and Cobert Finance S.A.
1998 High Court of England and Wales case / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The City of Gotha and Federal Republic of Germany v Sotheby's and Cobert Finance S.A. was a September 1998 case in the High Court of England and Wales involving the ownership of a Joachim Wtewael painting. The case was the first reported court decision on section 221 of the German Civil Code (Burgerliches Gesetzbuch). This section involves the limitation of proprietary actions when a third party has acquired possession of the property.[2] The case is important in regards to the concepts of statutes of limitation and acquisitive prescription.[3] It also contains a fascinating tale of state art trophies, theft, smuggling, backstabbing and restitution, against the background of major European political events, written by a judge with a sense of humor.
![]() | This article needs attention from an expert in Germany. The specific problem is: To a person not familiar with the topic, this whole article appears to be a jumbled mess, containing a mix of legalese and references that are either arcane or left non-elaborated. In many places the material is written in an unencyclopedic voice, and poorly formatted. The headlines are excessively long and quite numerous, all of which only serve to reduce ease of reading and further complicate the "jumbled mess problem".. (April 2020) |
The City of Gotha v Sotheby's | |
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![]() Joachim Wtewael - Self-portrait | |
Court | High Court (England & Wales) |
Full case name | The City of Gotha and Federal Republic of Germany v Sotheby's and Cobert Finance S.A. |
Decided | 19 June 1997 |
Citation | The Times (9 September 1998) |
Case history | |
Prior action | [1997] EWCA Civ 1897, [1998] 1 WLR 114[1] |
Court membership | |
Judge sitting | Moses J |
Keywords | |
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Despite the importance of the decision under both English and German law, it does not appear in any of the official law reports or on BAILII, and the only public report of the case appears in The Times newspaper (9 September 1998). Professor Adrian Briggs of Oxford University has described that omission as "a disgrace".[4] A full copy of the original judgment, initialled by Justice Moses, is here. However, by 5 May 2020, the judgement had made its way onto BAILLI,[5] as had a preliminary hearing relating to disclosure.[6]