UBS AG said it will not hand over privileged documents sought in an investigation into Credit Suisse’s handling of Nazi-linked accounts after a U.S. judge declined to give the bank assurances that doing so would not expose it to new legal claims, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
The Swiss lender said it had considered providing the records to investigator Neil Barofsky, who is overseeing a probe into Credit Suisse archives, but reversed course after a New York judge ruled he could not shield the bank from potential future lawsuits, Bloomberg said.
The bank said in an update posted Thursday to its website that it had explored ways to give Barofsky access while preserving protections tied to the 1999 settlement of Holocaust-era claims against Swiss banks. But after this week’s court decision, UBS said it would continue to keep confidential privileged documents stemming from the 1990s class-action litigation, Bloomberg said.
The dispute centers on about 150 withheld records that Barofsky said at a February hearing appeared to go to “the heart” of his investigation, which he said could not be completed without reviewing them.
The latest setback could push the case of the courts and back into the political arena, the news agency said. Members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee sharply criticized two UBS executives at a February hearing for refusing to produce the records, and Chairman Chuck Grassley said he may hold another hearing in the fall.
UBS had asked Judge Edward Korman in March to clarify that the Simon Wiesenthal Center could not sue for additional money or otherwise stir public controversy in a manner inconsistent with the 1999 settlement, Bloomberg reported. The bank argued that any new claims over Nazi-linked accounts could expose it to multi-billion-dollar liability.
Judge Korman ruled Tuesday that because no actual litigation was before him in the long-running dispute between Credit Suisse and the Simon Wiesenthal Center, he could not issue what amounted to an advisory opinion.
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