Credit Suisse launched the internal investigation after the Simon Wiesenthal Centre, named for the Holocaust survivor and Nazi hunter, said it had information that the bank held potential Nazi-linked accounts that had not previously been revealed, including during a series of Holocaust-related investigations of the 1990s.
Late that decade, Swiss banks agreed to pay some $US1.25 billion ($1.9 billion) to Nazi victims and their families who accused the banks of stealing, hiding or sending to the Nazis hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Jewish holdings.
Neil Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor and special inspector general of the US Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks following the 2008 financial crisis, was let go as ombudsman overseeing the probe.Credit: AP
Credit Suisse said its two-year investigation into the questions raised by the Simon Wiesenthal Center found “no evidence” to support the allegations “that many people on an Argentine list of 12,000 names had accounts at Schweizerische Kreditanstalt” — the predecessor of Credit Suisse — during the Nazi era.
It said the investigation “fundamentally confirms existing research on Credit Suisse’s history published in the context of the 1999 Global Settlement that provided binding closure for the Swiss banks regarding all issues relating to World War II.”
The latest findings come as problems have boiled over for Credit Suisse, a pillar of Swiss banking whose origins date to 1856, culminating in a government-orchestrated takeover by rival lender UBS.
The emergency rescue last month came after years of stock price declines, a string of scandals and the flight of depositors worried about Credit Suisse’s future amid global financial turmoil stirred by the collapse of two US banks.
Its troubles haven’t ended with the rescue. The US Senate Finance Committee said last month that a two-year investigation showed that Credit Suisse violated a plea agreement with US authorities by failing to report secret offshore accounts that wealthy Americans used to avoid paying taxes.
In the latest Senate findings, 70 Credit Suisse accounts with plausible links to Nazis in Argentina were opened after 1945 and at least 14 stayed open until the 2000s, including some as recently as 2020, according to the investigators’ reports.
Forensic research firm AlixPartners found that 21 accounts — including 12 opened after 1945 — had credible connections with those on the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s list of senior Nazi officials. They include an SS commander convicted at the Nuremberg trials as well as a Nazi commander who was tried, sentenced and released and whose account was not closed until 2002.
Others include German businessmen, scientists and another Nazi commander who were all either tried and acquitted or imprisoned and released.
The Senate committee, which oversees budget requests related to the State Department’s Office of the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues, issued a subpoena for the reports after new leadership at Credit Suisse paused its internal investigation last year.
Neil Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor and special inspector general of the US Troubled Asset Relief Program that bailed out banks following the 2008 financial crisis, was let go as ombudsman overseeing the probe months later.
“Credit Suisse’s decision to terminate oversight risks reputational damage based on the inevitable speculation as to what else may have been found or could have been found if the investigation and oversight were allowed to continue,” Barofsky’s report said.
It says the Swiss lender “did not review and investigate all relevant records” — including, for example, failing to complete a search on whether Nazi heirs tried to access bank accounts.
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The Simon Wiesenthal Center said removing Barofsky eroded its “confidence in a fair, independent and transparent historical review.”
“The actions taken today by the US Senate Committee on the Budget shine light on a dark and troubling past that has remained outside the historical record,” the organisation said on Tuesday.
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