Counsel and Funders
What a litigator, an estate practitioner or a litigation funder asks before a conflict check, answered from the public record. Nothing on this page is a statement of claim, and no figure appears here that a newspaper did not print.
Last updated October 19, 2026
The matter, dated
Othmar John Hitz, a Swiss citizen with Heimatort Seewis im Prättigau, born in Chur on 20 April 1899, built a coffee and real estate business in Venezuela. He died on 4 July 1958.
The Kreisamt Seewis published the Rechnungsruf for his estate in the Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt on 29 and 30 January 1960. The notice reads «Othmar John Hitz, geb. 20. April 1899 in Chur».
UPI reported in August 1963 that the money was frozen in a Swiss bank.
His only child and sole heir, Anna Maria Hitz, then seventeen, was reported missing from Washington, D.C. The Washington Post ran it on the front page on Tuesday, 23 November 1965. The Washington Daily News and The Evening Star reported on 26 November 1965 that she had been found in Caracas, married. The Evening Star's issues are digitised by the Library of Congress in Chronicling America.
In January 1966 the Caracas press reported seizures from safe-deposit boxes at two banks, and reported that assets had been placed in third parties' names in 1948. These are carried as reports, not as findings; the counter-reading printed at the time is carried too. The names in those reports go to counsel after a conflict check, not on this page.
Anna Maria Hitz died in Miami, Florida, on 4 February 2019. Per the family, no member of the family has ever collected the 1958 estate.
Every line above is sourced on the facts page and in the timeline. The estate was reported at $10 million in Washington in 1965 and at 40 to 150 million francs in the Swiss and European papers; the family does not pick a number.
What a conflict check needs
| Item | Answer |
|---|---|
| Claimant | Elisabeth Hitz, granddaughter of the heiress, keeper of the archive, one point of contact. Which person or estate holds standing in each jurisdiction, and who should be appointed as representative, is for counsel to determine. The family documents on both questions are in the register. |
| Adverse parties | The persons and institutions named in the 1966 Caracas reports and in the Swiss federal, cantonal and court records. Names are provided for the check, in writing, within one business day of a request. |
| Jurisdictions | Switzerland (canton of Graubünden; a Swiss bank). Venezuela (Caracas). United States (District of Columbia, 1965; Florida, 2019). |
| Period | 1948 to 2019. The dates that cut against the family are carried as openly as the ones that help it. |
| Languages of the record | English, Spanish, German, French. The claimant reads all four and works in Italian. |
What exists, and where
Twelve exhibits in the archive, the dated facts, the timeline, and a press fact sheet in plain text.
A register of more than 500 documents stating what each one proves and where it is held: 144 family originals from 1941 to 2019, about 200 press items from 1959 to 1966, and the Swiss federal, cantonal and court records read since 2026. Delivered through a secure portal set up for each firm. Nothing is sent by email.
File numbers, archive shelf marks, the contents of the sealed set, any will, and any figure beyond what the press printed. The adversaries read this site too.
Timing
Limitation, prescription and dormant-asset rules in each jurisdiction are for counsel to assess; the dates above are the ones the record gives. One public rule is worth stating: under the Swiss Bankers Association guidelines, assets with no client contact for 60 years are published at dormantaccounts.ch for one year and then pass to the Confederation. Assets last touched in the mid-1960s reach that threshold now (rules).
Fee structures the family will consider
A pure contingency fee is prohibited for Swiss lawyers. A base fee with a success component, the pactum de palmario, is permitted within the limits the Federal Supreme Court set in BGE 143 III 600 (13 June 2017). Third-party litigation funding is permitted.
Contingency representation in estate litigation exists and the family will consider it where the firm offers it.
The family understands that a funder wants counsel's view of the merits, a defined asset or an accountable fiduciary, and a budget before it looks further. The approach to funders follows counsel, not the other way round.
What the family brings
The archive is registered, not boxed. Each document has a provenance line, and the registers include the Swiss federal, cantonal and court records read in 2026.
One person answers, reads the Spanish, German and French originals herself, and is available for interviews and depositions in English, Spanish, German, French and Italian.
No statement about merits is made on this page or to the press. The book and series side of the story is kept separate from any legal matter, and nothing published here will reference a firm without its agreement.
Send the firm name and the jurisdictions you practise in. The party names for the check go back within one business day. After the check, the portal opens.