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In any case where a Creditor Clearing Office declines to notify a claim to the Debtor Clearing Office, or to take any step provided for in this Annex, intended to make effective in whole or in part a request of which it has received due notice, the enemy creditor shall be entitled to receive from the Clearing Office a certificate setting out the amount of the claim, and shall then be entitled to prosecute the claim before the courts or to take such other proceedings as may be open to him.
SECTION IV.
PROPERTY, RIGHTS AND INTERESTS.
Article 297.
The question of private property, rights and interests in an enemy country shall be settled according to the principles laid down in this Section and to the provisions of the Annex hereto.
(a) The exceptional war measures and measures of transfer (defined in paragraph 3 of the Annex hereto) taken by Germany with respect to the property, rights and interests of nationals of Allied or Associated Powers, including companies and associations in which they are interested, when liquidation has not been completed, shall be immediately discontinued or stayed and the property, rights and interests concerned restored to their owners, who shall enjoy full rights therein in accordance with the provisions of Article 298.
(b) Subject to any contrary stipulations which may be provided for in the present Treaty, the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to retain and liquidate all property, rights and interests belonging at the date of the coming into force of the present Treaty to German nationals, or companies controlled by them, within their territories, colonies, possessions and protectorates, including territories ceded to them by the present Treaty.
The liquidation shall be carried out in accordance with the laws of the Allied or Associated State concerned, and the German owner shall not be able to dispose of such property, rights or interests nor to subject them to any charge without the consent of that State.
German nationals who acquire ipso facto the nationality of an Allied or Associated Power in accordance with the provisions of the present Treaty will be considered as German nationals within the meaning of this paragraph.
(c) The price or the amount of compensation in respect of the exercise of the right referred to in the preceding paragraph (b) will be fixed in accordance with the methods of sale or valuation adopted by the laws of the country in which the property has been retained or liquidated.
(d) As between the Allied and Associated Powers or their nationals on the one hand and Germany or her nationals on the other hand, all the exceptional war measures or measures of transfer, or acts done or to be done in execution of such measures as defined in paragraphs 1 and 3 of the Annex hereto shall be considered as final and binding upon all persons except as regards the reservations laid down in the present Treaty.
(e) The nationals of Allied and Associated Powers shall be entitled to compensation in respect of damage or injury inflicted upon their property, rights or interests, including any company or association in which they are interested, in German territory as it existed on August 1, 1914, by the application either of the exceptional war
