Credit Suisse is accused of failing to fully cooperate with investigations.
Keystone / Peter Klaunzer
Collapsed Swiss bank Credit Suisse is alleged to have withheld details of its historic links with World War II-era Nazi clients, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
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A fresh look at Credit Suisse archives has revealed evidence of previously unknown Nazi accounts, including one account linked to the notorious German SS elite army unit that committed numerous atrocities during WWII.
+Read more about the Holocaust assets controversy
Former United States prosecutor Neil Barofsky is sifting through 3,600 boxes of files that were not seen by two investigatory panels in the 1990s, the newspaper reports.
Credit Suisse appointed Barofsky as an independent ombudsman to probe Nazi-era links in 2021, but later removed him from the position.
Barofsky was reinstated in 2023 after Credit Suisse was acquired by rival UBS in an emergency takeover earlier that year. WSJ says it has seen a letter written by Barofsky in December 2024 to the US Senate.
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Credit Suisse reinstates independent overseer for Nazi-account probe
UBS cooperates with probe
“The investigation has identified scores of individuals and legal entities connected to Nazi atrocities whose relationships with Credit Suisse had either been previously identified, or for which the relationship had been partially unidentified but the full nature of the bank’s involvement has not yet been reported publicly,” the letter states.
The letter appears to vindicate previous US Senate allegations that Credit Suisse had failed to fully cooperate with investigations looking into the matter.
UBS told WSJ that it is “committed to contributing to a fulsome accounting of Nazi-linked legacy accounts held at predecessor banks of Credit Suisse”.
In 1998, Credit Suisse and UBS agreed to pay $1.25 billion (CHF1.14 billion) to victims of the Holocaust or their heirs as part of a settlement with the World Jewish Congress, which had filed a lawsuit in the US.
Adapted from a Wall Street Journal article by mga.
