Attorney Ray Dowd will discuss recent federal litigation and international developments involving the unfinished business of World War II and the legacy of the Holocaust.

His free, public talk, “Who Should Profit From the Holocaust? Legal Controversies Over Nazi Art Looting,” will take place Tuesday, Oct. 20, at noon in the Law Center McQuade Law Auditorium.

The problem of unrestituted Nazi looted art is one facing museums, governments and private collectors worldwide.

In 1998, the issue hit the front pages of the world press when District Attorney Robert Morgenthau seized two works at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This seizure led the U.S. State Department under the Clinton administration to convene 44 countries and prominent art world players to sign on to the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art.

In the wake of the Washington Conference, many countries created commissions to oversee restitution of Nazi-looted art.

Dowd is a partner in the law firm of Dunnington Bartholow & Miller LLP in New York City. His practice consists of federal and state trial and appellate litigation, arbitration and mediation.

He served as lead trial counsel in notable cases involving art law, copyrights, trademarks, cybersquatting, privacy, trusts and decedents estates, licensing, corporate, and real estate transactions. He has litigated questions of Austrian, Canadian, French, German, Italian, Russian and Swiss law and handled matters in Surrogate’s Court, including Matter of Flamenbaum (2013), recovering an ancient Assyrian tablet for the Pergamon Museum in Berlin.

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