On April 13, 2026, S. 1884, the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2025, was signed into law as Public Law 119-82. Its stated purpose is "to clarify the Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, to appropriately limit the application of defenses based on the passage of time and other non-merits defenses to claims under that Act."

The bill was introduced on May 22, 2025 by Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) and drew 21 cosponsors — 11 Democrats and 10 Republicans. It became law more than nine years after the original Holocaust Expropriated Art Recovery Act of 2016, which was approved December 16, 2016 as Public Law 114-308.

Background: The Problem the Law Fixes

Congress's own finding in the 2016 Act reads: "It is estimated that the Nazis confiscated or otherwise misappropriated hundreds of thousands of works of art and other property throughout Europe as part of their genocidal campaign against the Jewish people and other persecuted groups" — something the Act says has been described as the "greatest displacement of art in human history." The claims it covers run over a defined window: the Act's term "covered period" means "the period beginning on January 1, 1933, and ending on December 31, 1945."

The 2016 Act identified the obstacle as a procedural one. Its findings record that recovery lawsuits in U.S. courts "face significant procedural obstacles partly due to State statutes of limitations, which typically bar claims within some limited number of years from either the date of the loss or the date that the claim should have been discovered," and that "in some cases, this means that the claims expired before World War II even ended."

The 2016 Act's answer was a federal six-year clock running from discovery rather than from the loss. A covered claim "may be commenced not later than 6 years after the actual discovery by the claimant or the agent of the claimant of" the artwork's "identity and location" and "a possessory interest of the claimant in the artwork or other property."

That did not settle the matter, and the 2025 law says so in a new finding it inserts into the 2016 Act: "Some courts have frustrated the intent of this Act by dismissing recovery lawsuits in reliance on defenses based on the passage of time, such as laches" — citing Zuckerman v Metropolitan Museum of Art, 928 F.3d 186 (2d Cir. 2019) — "or adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, or usucapion" — citing Cassirer v. Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, 89 F.4th 1226 (9th Cir. 2024) — "or on other non-merits discretionary defenses, such as the act of state doctrine", citing Von Saher v Norton Simon Museum of Art at Pasadena, 897 F.3d 1141 (9th Cir. 2018), and then "forum non conveniens, international comity, or prudential exhaustion."

Laches and a statute of limitations are not the same defense, and the two statutes keep them apart. The word "laches" appears nowhere in the enacted 2016 Act, whose findings name "State statutes of limitations" as the obstacle; the 2025 Act groups laches with "adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, and usucapion" as doctrines "based on the passage of time," and treats the act of state doctrine, international comity, forum non conveniens and prudential exhaustion as a separate family of "non-merits discretionary bases for dismissal."

What S. 1884 Actually Changed

Bars passage-of-time and non-merits defenses. A new Section 5(f) applies "with respect to any claim that is otherwise timely under this Act" and provides, first, that "all defenses or substantive doctrines based on the passage of time, including laches, adverse possession, acquisitive prescription, and usucapion, may not be applied with respect to the claim," and, second, that "all non-merits discretionary bases for dismissal, including the act of state doctrine, international comity, forum non conveniens, prudential exhaustion, and similar doctrines unrelated to the merits, may not be applied with respect to the claim." The opening condition does the limiting work: the bar operates on claims that are already timely under the Act.

Overrides the foreign-sovereign-immunity barrier. A new Section 5(b) provides that "notwithstanding any other law or prior judicial decision, any civil claim or cause of action covered by subsection (a) shall be deemed to be an action in which rights in violation of international law are in issue for purposes of section 1605(a)(3) of title 28, United States Code, without regard to the nationality or citizenship of the alleged victim." The Act's findings state the intent as allowing claims "regardless of the nationality or citizenship of the alleged victim," notwithstanding what the findings call the "domestic takings" rule under Federal Republic of Germany v. Philipp, 592 U.S. 169 (2021).

Removes the closing date. The 2016 Act applied its six-year discovery rule to claims "filed during the period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act and ending on December 31, 2026," and its Section 5(g) provided that the Act "shall cease to have effect on January 1, 2027," subject to an exception for claims already pending on that date. S. 1884 strikes that sunset outright and replaces the closed filing window with claims filed "on or after the date of enactment of this Act." That replacement phrase is inserted into the 2016 Act, so the "this Act" it contains is the 2016 Act, approved December 16, 2016; the 2025 Act's own separate applicability provision uses the same words to mean its own enactment on April 13, 2026. In the same subsection S. 1884 also strikes "Subsection (a)" and inserts "Subsections (a), (b), (f), and (g)", so the 2016 Act's own timing rule now carries the new immunity, defenses and service-of-process provisions with it.

Adds nationwide service of process. A new Section 5(g) provides that for a civil action brought under subsection (a) "in any State or Federal court, process may be served in the judicial district where the case is brought or any other judicial district of the United States where the defendant may be found, resides, has an agent, or transacts business."

Adds a severability clause. A new Section 6 provides that if any provision or application is held invalid, "the remainder of this Act, and the application of such provision to other persons and circumstances, shall not be affected thereby."

Rewrites the 2016 Act's own findings and purposes. Besides adding the two findings quoted above, S. 1884 amends the finding the 2016 Act already had on private resolution through alternative dispute resolution — redesignated from paragraph (8) to paragraph (10) — by striking "will yield just and fair resolutions in a more efficient and predictable manner" and inserting "may, in some circumstances, yield just and fair resolutions as well." In the 2016 Act's purposes section it inserts "and other non-merits defenses" after "statutes of limitation."

Applies to pending and future claims. The amendments apply to any civil claim or cause of action "pending in any court on the date of enactment of this Act, including any civil claim or cause of action that is pending on appeal or for which the time to file an appeal has not expired," or "filed on or after the date of enactment of this Act."

How It Passed

Neither chamber produced a recorded vote on S. 1884, but the two reached that result by different procedures.

The Senate Judiciary Committee reported the bill "with amendments. Without written report." on November 18, 2025. Congress.gov records the Senate floor action of December 10, 2025 as "Passed Senate with amendments by Unanimous Consent" — see our explainer on unanimous consent.

The House took a different route. On March 16, 2026 it took the bill up "under suspension of the rules" — House Rule XV provides that "a rule may not be suspended except by a vote of two-thirds of the Members voting, a quorum being present" — and Congress.gov records the result as "On motion to suspend the rules and pass the bill Agreed to by voice vote." A voice vote and unanimous consent are separate categories in the record, and S. 1884 has one of each.

The bill was presented to the President on April 2, 2026, signed on April 13, 2026, and became Public Law No. 119-82 the same day.

What It Means for Pending Cases

The applicability provision is where the practical reach is set. The amendments reach claims pending in any court on the date of enactment — expressly including those "pending on appeal or for which the time to file an appeal has not expired" — and claims "filed on or after the date of enactment of this Act."

A claim that was dismissed years ago and whose appeal window has closed is not pending, so reaching it means filing again. That is a new filing, and the six-year discovery clock in Section 5(a) still applies to it, because Section 5(f)'s bar on time-based and non-merits defenses reaches only a claim "that is otherwise timely under this Act."

Nothing in either statute decides who owns any particular work. The 2016 Act's rule of construction, which S. 1884 redesignates from subsection (f) to subsection (i) without changing its words, provides that "nothing in this Act shall be construed to create a civil claim or cause of action under Federal or State law."

Primary Sources

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