411.61 Assignments/100b: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in the Soviet Union (Henderson)
124. 1. The defendant77 in the suit to recover assets in the United States of the Moscow Fire Insurance Company is raising the question as to the right of the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to have assigned title to assets of corporations nationalized [Page 348] by and placed under the jurisdiction of the Government of the RSFSR78 prior to the establishment of the Union. It is probable that it will be contended that the right to assign title to such assets has not been shown by the Government making the assignment, either by acquisition of title or by virtue of power to act for the Government of the RSFSR.
[The omitted sections concerned legal technicalities, requests for interpretations of certain resolutions, regulations, and decrees of Soviet governmental bodies, and the meaning in law of a few Russian words.]
4. For your information and such discreet use as you may find advisable, the Department is requesting Soviet Ambassador here to supplement his note of July 21, 1936 (copy of which was transmitted to you without covering despatch July 27) by stating in effect that the Government of the USSR by virtue of the assignment of November 16, 1933 transferred to the United States claims which any of its constituent or component republics might conceivably have had, either as “the successor of prior Governments of Russia,” or “otherwise,” for instance, by virtue of decrees of nationalization issued by such republics. In this connection it is conceivable that you may have an opportunity discreetly to raise the question whether title to assets located abroad of nationalized corporations passed from the RSFSR to the USSR on the occasion of the organization of the latter (if so, is there any law which may be cited?) or insofar as insurance companies are concerned by virtue of the USSR decree of September 18, 1925?
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