Six collector and trade groups have supported the Ancient Coin Collectors' Guild's appeal seeking to ensure that the due process rights of
collectors are protected. The Guild has asked the
Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn an order forfeiting fifteen (15) of
its coins.
The Guild has argued that the district court could not assume
away important elements of the government’s case merely because its coins were
of types subject to import restrictions. Under the Convention for
Cultural Property Implementation Act, the government may only seize and forfeit
archaeological and ethnological objects “first discovered within” and “subject
to export control by” specific countries. And even then, the government
must make some showing that the articles left that country after the effective
date of those regulations. Here, at most, all the government showed was
that the coins were of types on the “designated lists” for Cyprus and China.
The briefs of the Guild and amici can be accessed here.
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