432
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
other European firms seeking compensation for, inter alia, the confiscation of Jewish bank assets, the use of Jewish slave labor, and the failure to pay Jewish insurance claims. See generally Bazyler, supra, at 1-171.
In the insurance industry, the litigation propelled a number of European companies to agree on a framework for resolving unpaid claims outside the courts. This concord prompted the 1998 creation of the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC). A voluntary claims settlement organization, ICHEIC comprises several European insurers, Jewish and Holocaust survivor organizations, the State of Israel, and this country's National Association of Insurance Commissioners. See S. Eizenstat, Imperfect Justice 266 (2003); Bazyler, supra, at 132.
As the Court observes, ante, at 407, ICHEIC has formulated procedures for the filing, investigation, valuation, and resolution of Holocaust-era insurance claims. At least until very recently, however, ICHEIC's progress has been slow and insecure. See In re Assicurazioni Generali S. p. A. Holocaust Ins. Litig., 228 F. Supp. 2d 348, 358 (SDNY 2002) (quoting a 2001 press account describing ICHEIC as having "repeatedly been at the point of collapse since its inception in 1998"). Initially, ICHEIC's insurance company members represented little more than one-third of the Holocaust-era insurance market. See App. 32 (declaration of Leslie Tick, California Dept. of Insurance) ("The five insurance company members of the ICHEIC represent approximately 35.5% of the pre-World War II European insurance market."); Eizenstat, supra, at 268 (despite repeated assurances that all German insurance companies would join ICHEIC, "[t]hey never have to this day"). Petitioners note that participation in ICHEIC has expanded in the past year, see Reply Brief 8-9, but it remains unclear whether ICHEIC does now or will ever encompass all relevant insurers.
Moreover, ICHEIC has thus far settled only a tiny proportion of the claims it has received. See Eizenstat, supra, at
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