Rick St Hilaire has come up with some thought-provoking information about a certain dugup artefacts dealers' lobby group: The ACCG's publicly reported expenses in the ancient coins test case have thus far totaled $49,973 according to the group's 2009 and 2010 Form 990-EZ tax filings, the most recent ones available online. ACCG board member Attorney Peter Tompa and his Washington, DC based law firm have been handling the case since its inception.But how much money did they make in 2011, 2012 and 2013? Talk about a nice little earner.
Vignette: the face of the ACCG legal team
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7 comments:
I'm happy my law firm allowed me to take on the case for so little. This amount won't even get you the defense of a simple discrimination or tort lawsuit. Perhaps St. Hilaire is even less familiar with civil litigation than I thought. What do you suppose Sotheby's has spent to date on defending its own forfeiture action? I'd venture to guess it's several times this amount and we have not even gotten much beyond a motion to dismiss. It's easy to sit back and blog about things, but one really has to practice in the area to get some sense of how litigation works.
I rather think that it was the conflict of interest (you know, those "ethics" things that some of us value as much as "what the law allows") that was the focus of my post, and possible St Hilaire's.
That your firm is cheap is again another two-wrongs-make-a-right argument ("that OK, this is a disgusting stunt which spits in the face of the cultural heritage and international relations, but at least its not costing as much as it could"). Frankly that is not an argument I would accept as valid.
So, just for the record, how much did the ACCG pay out in 2011, 2012 and 2013 for the continued appeal after appeal as each of your attempts was thrown out, one after another? A bit of transparency perhaps?
No conflict of interest. I recused myself from voting on the matter when litigating the case was discussed on the ACCG board.. I suspect you are in a minority even in the archaeology camp in considering using the court system to try to test the validity of regulations "disgusting.". It happens quite often here with differing results based upon the statutory authority. And I have no idea off the top of my head what the litigation cost in the subsequent years, but I'm sure it will be published as required in tax documents. Also, now that I think of it, I wonder if St. Hilaire's niumbers also include the costs of the FOIA case, which of course, I was not counsel for.
No conflict of interest. I recused myself from voting on the matter when litigating the case was discussed on the ACCG board.. I suspect you are in a minority even in the archaeology camp in considering using the court system to try to test the validity of regulations "disgusting.". It happens quite often here with differing results based upon the statutory authority. And I have no idea off the top of my head what the litigation cost in the subsequent years, but I'm sure it will be published as required in tax documents. Also, now that I think of it, I wonder if St. Hilaire's niumbers also include the costs of the FOIA case, which of course, I was not counsel for.
Alone or not, I suspect that even as well a read cultural property lawyer as you will not be able to point us to a comparable case in the UK where a group of dealers takes the government to court to try to overturn antiquities preservation legislation. Can you?
It is THAT which I consider disgusting in what the ACCG are up to.
I suspect though I am not the only one, even in the US you (plural) have many other critics.
We've never asked courts to overturn legislation. We've asked the courts to find that the State Department and Customs bureaucracies have misapplied those laws in promulgating regulations which we've asked to be modified or scrapped.
I'll thank you for not getting hair-splitting rabbinical with me.
What the ACCG (and your PNG and IAPN) want is the removal of US regulations based on the CCPIA which place any emphasis at all on WHERE WHAT THEY SELL COMES FROM.
That is obviously the main problem for these guys, not the scrap of paper with the scribble on it which is all that is needed to get all these coins flying through US customs under CCPIA.
I suspect that ACCG, PNG and IAPN feel that this is the thin edge of the wedge which they'd prefer not to be driven between them and their profits from selling no-questions-asked all manner of dugups.
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