## Facts

- Ursula Ungaro-Benages sued as heir to Lili Berliner (née Orenstein), alleging her family’s ownership interests in the German company Orenstein & Koppel (O&K) were taken during the Nazi-era “Aryanization” of Jewish property.
- She alleged Dresdner Bank AG and Deutsche Bank AG participated in and profited from transfers of Jewish-owned assets, including the Orenstein family’s purported O&K share interests.
- The complaint asserted state-law and international-law theories (including conversion and unjust enrichment) and sought recovery of assets or compensation.
- In 2000, Germany and German industry created the “Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future” Foundation to process Nazi-era claims, funded at roughly 10 billion Deutsche Marks.
- Also in 2000, the United States and Germany entered an executive agreement expressing U.S. foreign policy support for channeling such claims to the Foundation and for dismissal of U.S. lawsuits, while not formally extinguishing private claims.
- The district court granted summary judgment to the banks on multiple grounds, including the political question doctrine, international comity, statute of limitations, and failure to state a claim.

## Issues

1. Whether a federal court should decline to exercise jurisdiction on international comity grounds in favor of Germany’s Foundation mechanism for Nazi-era property claims.
2. Whether adjudicating Holocaust-era expropriation claims in light of the U.S.–Germany executive agreement presents a nonjusticiable political question.
3. Whether other defenses (including limitations and failure to state a claim) independently warranted dismissal.

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the defendants.
- The court held the case should be dismissed on international comity grounds in deference to Germany’s Foundation process and the United States’ expressed foreign policy favoring that forum.
- The court gave substantial weight to the Executive Branch’s position that Holocaust-era claims against German companies should be resolved through the Foundation rather than U.S. litigation.
- The court concluded the Foundation provided an adequate alternative forum for comity purposes, even if it did not mirror U.S. remedies or procedures.
- Because comity was dispositive, the court did not need to fully resolve every alternative ground relied on by the district court.

## Legal Principles

- International comity may justify a federal court’s decision to abstain from adjudicating claims when a foreign state has established a specific remedial forum for the same class of disputes and U.S. foreign policy supports use of that forum.
- In comity-based abstention, courts may consider: (1) the United States’ foreign policy interests, (2) the foreign sovereign’s interest in administering a reparations or compensation program, (3) the risk of conflicting outcomes, and (4) the suitability of the foreign forum.
- An executive agreement that does not formally extinguish private claims can still be a strong indicator of U.S. foreign policy and can support dismissal on comity grounds.
- An alternative forum need not provide identical relief to be adequate; it must offer a reasonable mechanism for redress within the relevant international framework.

## Conclusion

The Eleventh Circuit held that, given Germany’s specialized Foundation for Nazi-era claims and the United States’ expressed foreign policy preference that such claims proceed through that mechanism, the federal courts should dismiss Holocaust-era property claims against German companies on international comity grounds.


Ungaro-Benages v. Dresdner Bank AG, 379 F.3d 1227 (11th Cir. 2004)