Alperin v. Vatican Bank is a class action suit by Holocaust survivors against the Vatican Bank ("Institute for Works of Religion") and Franciscan Order ("Order of Friars Minor") filed in San Francisco, California on November 15, 1999. The case was initially dismissed as a political question by the District Court for the Northern District of California in 2003, but was reinstated in part by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2005. That ruling has attracted attention as a precedent at the intersection of the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
The complaint against the Vatican Bank was dismissed in 2007 on the basis of sovereign immunity, but the case against the Franciscan Order continues as of 2009. According to Hart, "the case is extremely complicated and potentially massive, considering the large class spread across many countries".
Read more about Alperin V. Vatican Bank: Historical Context, Legal Analysis
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