Amsterdam Court of Appeal to deliver judgment in Scythian gold case in September

As the Court's press service told an Ukrinform correspondent, the wrong date was accidentally announced during the court hearing in April. The judgment is to be announced on September 14, 2021, not on August 31, 2021.

It is also known that the judgment will be delivered in writing, and the court hearing will not be held. The judgment will be released in Dutch and English on the Court's official website.

On April 22, 2021, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal resumed the hearings on the merits in the case of the Scythian gold collection. The proceedings had previously been suspended pending the judge disqualification. Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Yevheniy Yenin and Deputy Minister of Culture and Information Policy of Ukraine Svitlana Fomenko, as well as Dutch lawyers representing Ukraine in the case, spoke on behalf of Ukraine at the hearing.

On October 28, 2020, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal granted Ukraine's motion to disqualify a judge in the Scythian gold case due to confirmation of the presiding judge's link with the lawyers of Crimean museums which could indicate his bias.

The collection of Scythian gold had been delivered to the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam as part of the exhibition entitled “Crimea – the Gold and Secrets of the Black Sea” prior to the illegal annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation.

On December 14, 2016, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that the exhibits of the Crimean museums had to be returned to Ukraine. The judgment was delivered pursuant to the UNESCO convention, according to which the art treasures should be returned to a sovereign state, which provided them for a temporary exhibition.

On March 28, 2017, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal received an appeal against the ruling from the representatives of Crimean museums.

Currently, the Scythian gold collection is kept in the Allard Pearson Museum in Amsterdam.

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