In a consolidated constitutional proceeding, fourteen claimants, all citizens of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), attacked the constitutionality of that clause of the German Unification Agreement providing that property expropriated during the Soviet occupation of eastern Germany during the period 1945-1949 was not to be returned to the original owners and that the owners could only be compensated in money. The Court confirmed the constitutionality of the provision and thus took a first step toward clarifying one of the greatest obstacles to significant investment in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR): unclear property ownership, making it impossible to say with certainty who ultimately owned much of the property in the former GDR.
