Bickford-Smith v. United States

The plaintiffs, British citizens, are the executors of the last will of John Clifford Bickford-Smith who was also a British citizen and a resident of England, and who will hereinafter be referred to as the decedent. On August 7, 1941, the decedent owned and possessed 5,391 shares of The Ensign-Bickford Company, a Connecticut corporation located in Simsbury, Connecticut.

The British Government in 1941 desired to borrow $425,-000,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, an *164agency of the United States Government. It proposed to deposit as collateral to secure the loan stocks of American…