UBS Faces New Pressure on Nazi Accounts From Senate Panel
(Bloomberg) — The chairman of the US Senate Judiciary Committee criticized UBS Group AG for not doing enough to investigate new leads into Credit Suisse’s involvement with Nazi accounts, adding to pressure on the Swiss bank over the sensitive issue.
The lender’s actions withholding related documents from investigators “call into question UBS’s candor to the committee and its commitment to a thorough investigation,” Chuck Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said in a statement.
He cited a new report to the committee from Neil Barofsky, the ombudsman hired by Credit Suisse to oversee the probe, that charged the bank with blocking full and complete investigation of more than 100 credible leads.
Grassley said he’s sent a new round of questions to the bank about the investigation, marking a further escalation of tensions between UBS, which inherited this case when it bought Credit Suisse in 2023, and the Senate panel over whether the bank is doing enough to investigate its historic Nazi links.
At a hearing in February, Grassley and other committee members criticized the bank for failing to do enough to probe new evidence that Credit Suisse may have handled Nazi accounts before, during and after World War II. In his latest letters to UBS executives, Grassley accused them of failing to “fully answer the Committee’s questions” at the hearing and in subsequent written exchanges.
UBS said in a statement that it “has shown unwavering commitment to this historical review, underpinned by substantial financial resources and continuous engagement.” It said the bank “has been and will continue to be transparent with the Committee and shares its objective to shed light on the historical record by delivering a final report by year end.”
The Senate salvo is the latest in a long-running conflict with the bank.
Last week, a US judge rejected UBS’s request for a statement that any potential new revelations would be covered under a 1999 settlement in which UBS and other Swiss banks agreed to pay $1.25 billion to survivors of the Holocaust and their families to compensate for World War II-era actions.
Citing that ruling and the risk of potential further lawsuits, UBS has limited Barofsky’s access to more than 100 files in the case on the basis of legal privilege. The bank has consistently argued that the language of the 1990s accord expressly protected it from any potential further liability — known or unknown at the time.
In his latest statement to the Senate committee, released Monday, Barofsky said the bank is blocking full and complete investigation of more than 100 credible leads and has set a deadline of July 31 for investigative work.
Among the leads he cited was evidence of a potential relationship with seven individuals and entities whose accounts may have been used to facilitate Nazi criminal activity, as well as 127 incidents of potential forced transfers of Jewish assets facilitated by Credit Suisse.
The Zurich-based bank said last week it’s not withholding any files from before the 1990s, and that “for example, if World War II-era documents are attached to a privileged document, we are not withholding those historical documents.”
While UBS said the documents it’s holding back represent less that 0.1% of the archives that it has made available, Barofsky said the actual amount is substantially larger because some of the documents “run over 1,000 pages each.” Lack of access to them prevents him from fully satisfying his mandate for the investigation, he said.
(Adds UBS comment in the sixth paragraph)
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