List of German dollar bond obligors in respect of which some vested assets are

Senator DIRKSEN. In connection with some of these, take, for instance, this property in Dortmund, in Duisburg and in Cologne. Those are in the areas of heavy attack and insofar as my own observations go it would appear to me that those utilities were just virtually destroyed. They may have had some underground installations that were saved out of the wreckage, but it was a pretty thorough job.

I am wondering now whether they have been reestablished and whether there is any validity to these bonds at all, whether under any

circumstance a complainant could get anywhere, even if there were a little cash?

Mr. CREIGHTON. I do not understand what you mean, get anywhere. Senator DIRKSEN. Well, you have got a little dab of money there, let us say, 2, 3, or 4 percent. What hope do you see of realizing further on the assets side on these?

Mr. CREIGHTON. I see in none of these accounts any hope of realizing any additional assets that will come under our control, Senator. Senator DIRKSEN. So we can virtually conclude that there is little or nothing to be added to the kitty.

Mr. CREIGHTON. That is my opinion.

Senator DIRKSEN. And the only question is who gets what little is there.

Mr. CREIGHTON. That is correct, sir.

Senator DIRKSEN. But I can see nothing on the asset side, particularly in those areas. I do not know how it would be prevented.

Mr. CREIGHTON. And it might be that under this debt agreement, if it is ever entered into, many of these claims may be withdrawn. I know nothing about the details of it. That is, I know generally about the details but I don't think it is my place to discuss those details until it does become an agreement, and it is my understanding that it is a matter which will be submitted to the Congress for its consideration.

Senator DIRKSEN. Now, Mr. Creighton, in gross, we have been discussing this morning and afternoon, roughly, about 35,000 claims out of a remaining total of 47,000.

Mr. CREIGHTON. 43,000. That is the number of debt claims. Senaor DIRKSEN. Yes, sir. Now, just give us a word about the remaining 12,000, or thereabouts.

Mr. CREIGHTON. The remaining 5,000, approximately.
Mr. NAIRN. 6,000.

Senator DIRKSEN. 5,000 or 6,000, that is right.

Mr. CREIGHTON. I am not in a position, Senator, to give you any details with respect to those particular 5,000 claims. Some of them may be additional bond claims in which there is an isolated claimant against some corporation or municipality. Some of them may be claims that are filed against some concern maybe pension claims filed against German insurance companies or insurance claims. We have quite a number of claims for insurance that are filed against German insurance companies under contracts of insurance. I don't know how many of them, but I would say several hundred.

We have a good many pension claims that are filed by former employees of German corporations who are claiming pension rights growing out of termination of their employment by reason of discriminatory decrees.

They run the whole gamut.

Senator DIRKSEN. Now, with respect to that residue of claims, what do you see by way of a verification procedure that could expedite their disposition, taking into account, of course, certainly claims where you have a variety of interests?

Mr. CREIGHTON. I see very little. Take the pension claims, for example. A man files a pension claim based upon what he alleges was the prewar rate of exchange without any regard to the monetary

reform laws of Germany, or says that he had a claim which was payable in old marks and he may have made some sort of a settlement with the company under the restitution laws of Germany, and we have to go into the revaluation laws, the monetary reform laws, because they provide that in certain types of pensions the amounts which accrued under the pension agreement prior to such and such a date shall be converted at a certain rate of exchange, and that the payments which became due after another date shall be converted at a different rate of exchange, I simply cannot see how you can, by legislation, except as I have heretofore pointed out, help us in this claims program by initiating what you call, or what has been called, a verified claims procedure.

It is not so much the evidentiary problem that worries us as it is the legal problem. And I don't know how we can escape the legal problems, Senator.

Mr. NAIRN. You speak only in regard to the 6,000 remaining claims. That statement would not apply to the others we have discussed with respect to the Yokohama Specie Bank?

Mr. CREIGHTON. I think it applies with respect to the Yokohama Specie Bank claims too. While we have evidentiary problems we have legal problems, namely, the rate of exchange, whether they are dollar claims or whether they are yen claims. The questions which the lawyers raise are legal problems. I may have my opinion upon what the law is, but someone disagrees with me, and some day that legal question has to be determined. Under the present law, it is determined first in our office by our hearing examiners. If they don't accept my view of the question, then it goes to the Director, and then after we have processed all the claims against that particular debtor, then they can go to the court and have it reviewed.

To me, under the debt claim statute as it now exists, the winding up of all of these debt claims is a task that is insurmountable.

Nr. NAIRN. Under the present law, but we asked if there was not a possibility that the law could be amended so that these claims could be disposed of. Now, if you had this verified claim in the Yokohama Specie Bank and there had been a legal determination by statute as to the rate of exchange, and a date for the rate of exchange, then you would have what we know in the law as a liquidated claim. If you file a verified liquidated claim in court, and you don't get an answer, you can take a judgment. You cannot take a judgment on an unliquidated sum.

Mr. CREIGHTON. Who files the answer? The claim is made against the Government of the United States. The Office of Alien Property is the defendant. He is the only man that can answer.

Mr. NAIRN. That is true, but if there were a statute which provided that where there was a liquidated sum that there would be no answer filed against a claim for $500 and under or $1,000 and under

Mr. CREIGHTON. Mr. Nairn, if Congress wants to pass a statute which says that at any time a claimant files a verified notice of claim in which he states that "there is due me so many yen that is payable by the Yokohoma Specie Bank, I am a resident of the United States, and was a resident of the United States during the entire period of war," and so forth, and so on, and it directs me to pay that, all right it can be paid. But remember, you are going to have 18,000 of that type of

claim under your present workload here, and they are going to range from 50 cents up. And even to draw a check, let alone index a claim when it comes in, to draw a check will cost the Government 15 or 20 times more than the man will receive. That is the reason I say that I do not believe that if you would repeal the entire statute very many people would suffer any substantial loss.

I don't think a verified small claims procedure is what we are looking for in this situation. It is not the answer to the problem. It would be helpful, maybe, if you change the law and provide that if we are eventually going to pay the claim, but I don't think that is the answer to our problem.

Senator DIRKSEN. Tell me what has been your experience insofar as assignment of claims is concerned? Do you recognize assignments ostensibly for value?

Mr. CREIGHTON. We do not; no, sir.

Senator DIRKSEN. It has to be the original claimant?

Mr. CREIGHTON. It has to be the original claimant or the successor in interest by operation of law, by succession or testate succession or otherwise, and it has been held that the Assignment of Claims Act applies to property which we hold.

Senator DIRKSEN. Insofar as you know, has there been any assignment of these claims?

Mr. CREIGHTON. Many.

Senator DIRKSEN. There have been?

Mr. CREIGHTON. We have people all the time claiming property by reason of assignment made by an ineligible claimant in Germany to a relative in the United States. It is not an isolated case. There are many of them.

Senator DIRKSEN. You do not recognize them?

Mr. CREIGHTON. We do not recognize them at all, sir.

Senator DIRKSEN. You will have to refresh me. Is there a provision in the statute with respect to assignments?

Mr. CREIGHTON. Well, it says that the property held by the Alien Property Custodian shall not be subject to garnishment, writ of attachment, assignment, or otherwise.

Senator DIRKSEN. So, by implication

Mr. CREIGHTON. And the statute says that you can return to the person who was the owner thereof at the time of seizure or vesting or his successor in interest by operation of law, and it has been held by the courts also that the general statute against the assignment of claims against the United States had application to the property which we hold, that these are claims against the United States.

Mr. ULMAN. If I might supplement that by adding that the legislative history contains an explicit statement that the provision relating to succession of interest by operation of law was intended to prevent assignments in violation of the Assignment of Claims Act. Senator DIRKSEN. Thank you.

I wonder now, for purposes of the record and for the information of Congress, can you just take a case history of one claim and take it through your whole procedure so that we get a pretty fair idea of how the matter operates?

Mr. CREIGHTON. When a claim first comes into the Office it goes to our Records Section.

Senator DIRKSEN. Yes. Incidentally, I suppose these come in in a letter form, very likely?

Mr. CREIGHTON. No; we have a form. There has been promulgated a form upon which claims must be filed.

Senator DIRKSEN. So, if you do get an inquiry a form goes back? Mr. CREIGHTON. A form goes back and we get many cases in which claims are what we call informally filed. People write in and in those cases, we have given a very liberal construction to the limitation statute. While our rules of procedure provide that claims must be filed on the forms prescribed by the Office, if we have an informal claim filed with us within the statutory period, we waive the filing of the formal form, provided the formal claim is filed within a specified time.

Senator DIRKSEN. Would you submit a copy of the form for the record?

Mr. CREIGHTON. Yes, sir. Both of the debt and title claims?
Senator DIRKSEN. Yes.

(The information referred to is as follows:)

[Form APC-1A (Instructions), Supplementary Revision]

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, OFFICE OF ALIEN PROPERTY SUPPLEMENT No. 1 TO EXPLANATION AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR FORM APC-1A

(REVISED)

REVISION OF INSTRUCTIONS (1)

(1) Limit on time for filing claims.-Pursuant to Public Law 874, 80th Congress, April 30, 1949, or two years from the date of vesting, whichever is later, has been fixed as the last date for filing claims for the return of vested property. Text of Section 33 of the Trading with the Eenemy Act as revised July 1, 1948 "SEC. 33. No return may be made pursuant to section 9 or 32 unless notice of claim has been filed: (a) in the case of any property or interest acquired by the United States prior to December 18, 1941, by August 9, 1948; or (b) in the case of any property or interest acquired by the United States on or after December 18, 1941, by April 30, 1949, or two years from the vesting of the property or interest in respect of which the claim is made, whichever is later. No suit pursuant to section 9 may be instituted after April 30, 1949, or after the expiration of two years from the date of the seizure by or vesting in the Alien Property Custodian, as the case may be, of the property or interest in respect of which relief is sought, whichever is later, but in computing such two years there shall be excluded any period during which there was pending a suit or claims for return pursuant to section 9 or 32 (a) hereof."

[Form APC-1A (Instructions)]

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFFICE OF ALIEN PROPERTY

EXPLANATION AND INSTRUCTIONS FOR FORM APC-1A (REVISED)

(NOTICE OF CLAIM FOR RETURN OF PROPERTY)

(Read this explanation before filling out the form)

(A) Who should use this form.-Use this form (APC-1A) if you want to apply for the return of property which has been taken by the Alien Property Custodian or the Attorney General of the United States. If you have already filed a claim for your property on some other form (for example, Form APC-1, APC-16, or APC-17), you do not need to file again on this form unless you are requested to do so.