Judah Gribetz, who is overseeing the compensation payment process, said that Swiss banks, citing banking secrecy laws, restricted access to information about millions of Nazi-era accounts. "The lack of full access to existing documentation and the unavailability of other data make the claims process difficult," Gribetz wrote in a report to Edward Korman, the Brooklyn judge who received the lawsuit. The lawsuit is often cited as an example of American courts' desire to try to end injustice not only at home.
Under the terms of the settlement, the banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion to satisfy the claims of all those harmed by what plaintiffs call the cooperation of Swiss institutions with the Nazis. $800 million was intended for bank depositors or their heirs. The remaining amount was to go to those who claimed that they or their relatives suffered from Switzerland's actions at a time when people were forced to work in camps that, according to plaintiffs, were financed by Swiss banks. Korman said that to date, $485 million has been distributed among people living in different countries with various claims, of which $131.5 million has been paid to depositors. "It is especially regrettable," Gribetz wrote in the report, "to acknowledge the possibility that not all victims' registration documents are available and not all victims' accounts will be returned to their owners."
The banks say they are fully cooperating in the compensation process. Roger Witten, the attorney representing the banks, did not respond to phone calls requesting comment.
In previous rulings, Korman expressed his displeasure with delays, for which he blamed representatives of the Swiss banks. In 1999, he appointed Gribetz as the court-appointed monitor overseeing the compensation process. In his report, Gribetz often avoided direct criticism of the Swiss banks but included extensive material that raises questions about their actions. For example, in 2000, Paul Volcker, then head of the commission investigating the role of Swiss banks, said they should disclose data on 4.1 million accounts opened between 1933 and 1945. The banks made public information on only 36,000 accounts, Gribetz reported.
In the report, Gribetz quotes excerpts from a 2002 study by a group of historians commissioned by the Swiss government. They concluded that during the war, some Swiss banks did almost nothing when depositors were forced to transfer accounts to the name of the Nazi authorities.
The Swiss banks dispute some of the commission's findings, denying, for example, that in many cases the banks misinformed relatives of Holocaust victims who made inquiries about accounts. The banks assert that the documentation concerning the 4.1 million accounts is fragmentary, located in various places, and unlikely to help find Holocaust victims. They note that these are depositors who gave Swiss addresses, and Swiss banking secrecy laws prohibit disclosing information about them. The banks emphasize that they will release information about these accounts if there are "reasonable and sufficient grounds" for the fact that the depositors are victims of the Holocaust.
Translation by Inopressa.ru.