Title 22 — Foreign Relations and IntercourseRelease 119-73

§1642l Payment of awards

Title 22 › Chapter CHAPTER 21— - SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL CLAIMS › Subchapter SUBCHAPTER IV— - CLAIMS AGAINST CZECHOSLOVAKIA › § 1642l

Last updated Apr 6, 2026|Official source

Summary

The Secretary of the Treasury must pay awards from the Czechoslovakian Claims Fund for amounts the Commission certified. First, each claimant gets $1,000 or the full award if the award is less than $1,000. After that, any money left is paid out from time to time so each unpaid award gets the same percentage of its remaining balance as the fund’s available money is of the total unpaid awards. The Treasury will make rules for applying and getting payments. An “award” means all awards for the same claimant added together. If a recipient is dead or legally unable to act, payment goes to their legal representative. If a payment is $1,000 or less and there is no executor or administrator, the Comptroller General may pay the person or people he finds entitled without formal estate steps. Unless a payment fully covers the claim as the Commission decided, getting a payment does not wipe out the claimant’s remaining rights against a foreign government, subject to any later agreement between the U.S. and Czechoslovakia.

Full Legal Text

Title 22, §1642l

Foreign Relations and Intercourse — Source: USLM XML via OLRC

(a)The Secretary of the Treasury is authorized and directed, out of the sums covered into the Czechoslovakian Claims Fund, to make payments on account of awards certified by the Commission pursuant to this subchapter as follows and in the following order of priority:

(1)Payment in the amount of $1,000 or in the amount of the award, whichever is less.

(2)Thereafter, payments from time to time on account of the unpaid balance of each remaining award made pursuant to this subchapter which shall bear to such unpaid balance the same proportion as the total amount in the fund available for distribution at the time such payments are made bears to the aggregate unpaid balance of all such awards.

(b)Such payments, and applications for such payments, shall be made in accordance with such regulations as the Secretary of the Treasury shall prescribe.

(c)For the purpose of making any such payments, an “award” shall be deemed to mean the aggregate of all awards certified in favor of the same claimant.

(d)If any person to whom any payment is to be made pursuant to this subchapter is deceased or is under a legal disability, payment shall be made to his legal representative, except that if any payment to be made is not over $1,000 and there is no qualified executor or administrator, payment may be made to the person or persons found by the Comptroller General to be entitled thereto, without the necessity of compliance with the requirements of law with respect to the administration of estates.

(e)Subject to the provisions of any claims agreement hereafter concluded between the Governments of Czechoslovakia and the United States, payment of any award pursuant to this subchapter shall not, unless such payment is for the full amount of the claim, as determined by the Commission to be valid, with respect to which the award is made, extinguish such claim, or be construed to have divested any claimant, or the United States on his behalf, of any rights against any foreign government for the unpaid balance of his claim.

Reference

Citations & Metadata

Citation

22 U.S.C. § 1642l

Title 22 — Foreign Relations and Intercourse

Last Updated

Apr 6, 2026

Release point: 119-73