UBS has said it wants to bring greater transparency to Switzerland’s dark chapter helping the Nazis in World War II.
In Brooklyn federal court, UBS has a different message for the Jewish organization that asked for the Credit Suisse probe in 2020, the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Be quiet, and don’t ask us for any more money.
The issue will get an airing in Congress Tuesday when an independent investigator delving into archives at UBS’s Credit Suisse unit testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sen. Chuck Grassley , the committee chairman, said that investigator Neil Barofsky has found close to 900 accounts that may be tied to Nazi officials and party members. Barofsky also found indications the bank helped fleeing officials resettle in Argentina, Grassley told journalists.
For decades after World War II, Swiss banks turned away the families of Holocaust victims, saying they had no records of their loved ones’ accounts and assets. Neutral Switzerland denied suggestions it helped to finance the Nazis and prolonged their terror.
A settlement struck in the late 1990s with UBS and Credit Suisse—resulting in nearly $1.3 billion in payments—came after years of diplomatic wrangling, and denials by the banks that they were harboring any significant amounts of money for Jewish victims or had done any meaningful business with Nazis.
UBS has voluntarily and extensively cooperated with the Barofsky probe, according to prepared remarks to the Senate committee from UBS Americas President Rob Karofsky . The bank, however, doesn’t want to reopen the late 1990s settlement, or to share information around Credit Suisse’s legal decision-making at that time.
That information, consisting of communications and documentation between Credit Suisse and its lawyers has “not been provided because the Simon Wiesenthal Center and others have threatened litigation over this matter,” Karofsky said.
In earlier probes that formed the basis of the late 1990s settlement, Credit Suisse said it had identified 14 likely Nazi clients. UBS at the time said it found one account for a former Reichsbank president and another opened by an SS officer’s widow decades after the war.
Credit Suisse collapsed in March 2023 after a series of scandals, and in poor financial health. UBS rescued it with the backing of the Swiss government. The two banks were Switzerland’s largest, and both absorbed smaller banks in acquisitions following WWII.
The late-1990s settlement compensated bank account holders, slave laborers and others who had assets looted or were refused refuge in Switzerland. The idea was it would draw a line under the Swiss banks’ activities forever, no matter whether any additional information was found.
UBS got kudos for letting a team overseen by Barofsky roam deep into the archives at its Credit Suisse unit, where they discovered accounts tied to the Nazi war machine that weren’t disclosed before the late 1990s legal settlement with Jewish groups.
But in a court filing last week, UBS requested a judge’s order to ban the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other Jewish groups that participated in the settlement from questioning the settlement’s validity.
It asked the judge to make explicit that the settlement disallows any further legal action or additional payments, and to prohibit any of the groups who endorsed it “to cause or promote any public controversy” over the settlement and the Swiss banks’ conduct.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a letter last week to the judge, the group’s lawyers said the sweeping language of UBS’s proposed order would obstruct its First Amendment rights and “its longstanding mission of investigating and bringing to light the full scope of the antisemitic campaign engaged in by the Nazis before, during, and after World War 2.”
Karofsky in his prepared remarks to the Senate said any suggestion that UBS is suing the Simon Wiesenthal Center or attempting to silence it is false. A court hearing on the matter is scheduled for March 12. UBS and the center already underwent two mediation sessions, in December and January.
An earlier, interim report shared with the Senate by Barofsky found documents that indicated Credit Suisse had discovered and documented some key Nazi-linked accounts during probes in the 1990s. He found that the bank didn’t disclose those accounts then, and in at least one case had denied having any relevant records.
Barofsky is a former U.S. prosecutor, and is now a partner at law firm Jenner & Block. He was hired by Credit Suisse in 2021 after the Simon Wiesenthal Center found information on possible Nazi clients that hadn’t previously been disclosed. Credit Suisse fired Barofsky in 2022 for overreaching on his mandate, and he was rehired by UBS after it took over in 2023.
UBS has declined to open up its own war-era archives, separate from those of Credit Suisse. UBS previously acknowledged destroying records in the 1990s that might have been relevant. At the time of the record destruction, which was revealed by a night watchman who saw it happening and saved some documents, UBS was under scrutiny for its wartime activities.
Karofsky in his prepared remarks said the current probe’s scope has increased significantly, and beyond what was envisioned. He said the priority now is to complete the review, and that UBS will continue to follow the facts.
Write to Margot Patrick at margot.patrick@wsj.com
