Zivkovich v. Vatican Bank

George Zivkovich (plaintiff) brought an action against the Vatican’s bank, Istituto per le Opere di Religione (IOR), and the Order of Friars Minor (OFM) (defendants) for conversion, unjust enrichment, restitution, an accounting, and international-law violations. Zivkovich alleged that (1) he was born in April 1936 in Yugoslavia and was Serbian Orthodox; (2) the Ustasha regime in Yugoslavia operated as a Nazi protectorate from 1941 to 1945; (3) he and his mother were arrested and sent to concentration camps along with other Serbs, Jews, and Roma; (4) his mother was murdered after he and his mother were returned to their home in 1942; (5) his grandfather Damjan Janus, who was a wealthy goods trader, was forced from his home and had his belongings looted before being murdered by the Ustasha when Zivkowich was three years old; (6) the assets looted by the Ustasha (the Ustasha treasury) were transferred to banks to fund the Nazi war effort; (7) after the Ustasha regime fell in 1945, the Ustasha treasury was transferred to clergymen for transport to Rome; (8) according to intelligence reports and other reports, Ustasha were caught trying to escape with 350 million Swiss francs worth of gold, 200 million Swiss francs were transferred to Vatican City and the IOR with the assistance of the OFM, and 2,400 kilograms of stolen gold were moved from the Vatican to one of the Vatican’s secret Swiss bank accounts; and (9) the IOR and OFM used the Ustasha treasury to help Nazi war criminals escape and to finance post-war Ustasha activities. The IOR and OFM moved to dismiss on grounds, among others, that Zivkovich lacked standing.