434
Ginsburg, J., dissenting
Cal. Ins. Code Ann. § 13801(d) (West Cum. Supp. 2003), the HVIRA declares that "[i]nsurance companies doing business in the State of California have a responsibility to ensure that any involvement they or their related companies may have had with insurance policies of Holocaust victims [is] disclosed to the state," § 13801(e). The HVIRA accordingly requires insurance companies doing business in California to disclose information concerning insurance policies they or their affiliates sold in Europe between 1920 and 1945, § 13804(a), and directs California's Insurance Commissioner to store the information in a publicly accessible "Holocaust Era Insurance Registry," § 13803. The Commissioner is further directed to suspend the license of any insurer that fails to comply with the HVIRA's reporting requirements. § 13806.
These measures, the HVIRA declares, are "necessary to protect the claims and interests of California residents, as well as to encourage the development of a resolution to these issues through the international process or through direct action by the State of California, as necessary." § 13801(f). Information published in the HVIRA's registry could, for example, reveal to a Holocaust survivor residing in California the existence of a viable claim, which she could then present to ICHEIC for resolution.1
The Court refers, ante, at 408-409, 426, to a number of other California statutory provisions enabling the litigation
1 In addition, California may deem an insurer's or its affiliate's continuing failure to resolve Holocaust-era claims relevant marketplace information for California consumers. See Brief for Respondent 42-44; Brief for National Association of Insurance Commissioners as Amicus Curiae 11- 13. The Court discounts the HVIRA's pursuit of this objective, stressing that the HVIRA covers only certain policies issued in Europe more than 50 years ago. Ante, at 425-426. But States have broad authority to regulate the insurance industry, Western & Southern Life Ins. Co. v. State Bd. of Equalization of Cal., 451 U. S. 648, 653-655 (1981), and a State does not exceed that authority by assigning special significance to an insurer's treatment of claims arising out of an era in which government and industry collaborated to rob countless Holocaust victims of their property.
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