Swiss banks face apartheid action
GENEVA, Switzerland --Two of Switzerland's largest banks are facing legal action over their alleged dealings with South Africa's apartheid-era regime.
UBS and Credit Suisse are set to be taken to court on behalf of victims of the country's white-authoritarian government by Ed Fagan, the U.S. lawyer who in 1998 won $1.25 billion for Holocaust victims and their relatives from the same two banks.
The value of the current class action is estimated to be worth $51 billion, the Swiss Sunday newspaper SonntagsZeitung reported.
Fagan accused UBS and Credit Suisse at a news conference in Geneva on Monday of helping the South African regime between 1985 and 1993 by providing loans and facilitating business deals worth billions of dollar at a time when international sanctions had been placed on the white-authoritarian regime.
The United Nations had imposed an embargo against the regime, which had ruled South Africa since 1948, heralding an exodus of foreign currency from the country.
Fagan told the conference, which was eventually abandoned because of the noise of protesters: "The truth is we just opened a gaping wound."
He said the funds were used to buy arms. Locals heckled Fagan, telling him "Go home" and "Wash your dirty linens elsewhere."
A separate news conference was being held in South Africa with Lulu Petersen, sister of the most famous casualty of the 1976 Soweto uprising.
Hector Petersen, 13, was the first student shot dead by police in 1976. The photograph of his body, held by a friend, with his tearful sister running alongside, became a symbol of student resistance.
The suit will allege that the banks "profited from the human rights violations and crimes against humanity committed against blacks in South Africa" under apartheid, Reuters news agency reported.
Dumisa Ntsebeza, a South African lawyer working with Fagan, told SonntagsZeitung that the banks "should be financially answerable for the suffering they caused the black population."
He argues that the apartheid regime would not have survived so long if it had not been "propped up" after 1985 by firms "whose only motive was profit."
"Now they should do something to help build the country and aid the victims of apartheid."
Fagan said he represented about 80 plaintiffs, but a telephone hot line for victims who want to join the class action case is to be opened in South Africa, now run by an inclusive democracy.
Fagan said he planned further claims against Swiss and international companies, including a suit against U.S.-based Citicorp which owns Citibank.
Lawsuit 'Absurd'
Karin Rhomberg, spokeswoman for Credit Suisse told The Associated Press, it saw "no grounds" for the lawsuit.
"We are against all forms of racism, but it's absurd that our group should be held jointly responsible for the wrongs of the apartheid system."
Another Credit Suisse spokeswoman, Claudia Kraaz, told Reuters: "CS Group operated at all times according to all applicable laws and Swiss government regulations for doing business with South African business.
"A lawsuit filed by U.S. lawyers in U.S. courts would not be the appropriate forum for considering issues related to Swiss companies in South Africa."
UBS refused to comment on the case.
Fagan represented Holocaust victims and their heirs in the 1990s high-profile case against banks that had allegedly made it almost impossible for plaintiffs to recover money deposited for safekeeping as the Nazis swept across Europe.
The banks are said to have demanded lost documents to prove ownership and even death certificates of people killed in Nazi concentrations camps.
Swiss authorities last year said they were reopening an investigation into links between the country's intelligence service and apartheid-era South Africa after reports that the Alpine nation's former spy chief helped the government in its plans to develop chemical and biological weapons for use against blacks,
AP added.
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