The April 8th "Asset Search News Roundup" comments on both a revised OECD-Council of Europe tax treaty and a contested provenance case brought to recover an ancient gold tablet:
- An April 6th press release announced that the OECD and Council of Europe are updating a treaty aimed at helping governments fight cross-border tax evasion. The press release states: "[t]his will enable developing countries to become parties to the amended convention and benefit from the new, more transparent tax-cooperation environment."
- Berlin’s Vorderasiatisches Museum lost the contested provenance case it brought to recover a small gold tablet which dates to the reign of the Assyrian King Tukulti-Ninurta I. The ancient tablet had allegedly gone missing from a national Berlin museum at the conclusion of World War II.
As more fully set forth in a March 30, 2010 Nassau County N.Y. Surrogate’s decision, the Vorderasiatisches Museum could not recover the tablet from the estate of Riven Flamenbaum because of the doctrine of laches. The late Mr. Flamenbaum had been a holocaust survivor and reportedly maintained the tablet in his Great Neck, New York safety deposit box.
Copyright 2010 Fred L. Abrams