A US judge rejects the request of the major Swiss bank on a formal legal basis. Now the debate about possible new Holocaust lawsuits continues.
04/08/2026, 05:1204/08/2026, 05:12
Defeat for UBS: A federal judge in the New York borough of Brooklyn refused on Tuesday to give his say in the renewed dispute over Nazi accounts. Judge Edward Korman rejected the Swiss financial institution’s corresponding applications.
The two UBS representatives Robert Karofsky and Barbara Levi took part in a US Senate hearing on Nazi accounts in February 2026.Image: Screenshot: senate.gov / chemedia
UBS had demanded that the Holocaust research institute Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) adhere to the settlement of major banks concluded in 1999. Therefore, the SWC is no longer allowed to publicly claim that there are further historical explosive devices from the Second World War in the archives of the former Credit Suisse.
Federal judges do not have jurisdiction over hypothetical cases
Korman, who met the disputing parties for a discussion in his courtroom a month ago, justified his decision in formal legal terms. He writes in his eight-page judgment, that CH Media has, in effect: UBS cannot have the five and the way.
What the bank is demanding from him is a legal opinion on the question of whether the big bank settlement might also include the accounts of Nazi officials at predecessor institutions of Credit Suisse, which is now part of UBS. In the American legal system, federal judges are not allowed to hear hypothetical cases, writes Korman, even though there is little doubt “that UBS and SWC have been at loggerheads with each other in recent years.” If UBS wanted a clear answer, it would have to file a lawsuit. However, legal proceedings against the Simon Wiesenthal Center are not in the interest of the Swiss bank, also for political reasons.
How many Nazis had accounts in Swiss banks?
Prominent representatives of Jewish organizations in the USA have indicated in recent months that they would like to renegotiate the settlement with major banks. In 1999, the Swiss financial industry agreed to pay $1.25 billion and in return received the assurance that all claims would be settled. The SWC now appears to be taking the position that this passage only referred to the victims of the Nazi regime. There is an accusation that Credit Suisse did not tell the truth about possible Nazi customers from predecessor institutions during the settlement negotiations.
The lawyer Neil Barofsky is currently investigating how many perpetrators the predecessor institutions of the collapsed Credit Suisse worked with. Barofsky wants to publish the results of his archive research this year. (aargauerzeitung.ch)