UBS Group AG came under renewed pressure from the US Senate Judiciary Committee over Credit Suisse's handling of Nazi-linked accounts, after a previously undisclosed letter from committee chairman Charles Grassley set out 62 questions for the Swiss lender to answer. The letter, dated 17 July, was made public on Thursday, when Bloomberg reported its contents. Grassley wrote that UBS's earlier responses "did not fully address this Committee's questions". UBS declined to comment on the letter, though a person familiar with the bank's planning said it is working on a reply. The exchange marks the latest escalation in a dispute that has run through the year between the committee and Switzerland's sole remaining global bank.
The demand follows UBS's 2023 emergency takeover of Credit Suisse, through which it assumed all of its rival's legal liabilities, including exposure to a six-year-old investigation into accounts held for Nazi officials and affiliated entities. That probe was launched after records surfaced showing Credit Suisse had serviced accounts for Nazis and related organisations, including those tied to the so-called Rat Lines used to escape to Argentina after the Second World War. Senators criticised the bank at a hearing in February. UBS has since pushed to conclude the review by the end of this year and to narrow its scope, describing the independent ombudsman overseeing it as biased.
DISPUTE OVER THE 1998 SETTLEMENT
At the centre of the disagreement is the scope of the settlement Swiss banks reached with Jewish organisations in the 1990s, under which $1.25 billion was paid to Holocaust victims. UBS maintains that the agreement covers all potential exposure arising from the handling of Nazi-era accounts, and characterises the current investigation as an exercise in completing the historical record rather than a live liability question. The bank has stated it will cooperate with inquiries it regards as legitimate but will not allow the process to continue indefinitely. It has said it spent more than $100 million financing the ombudsman's team of investigators and made more than 19 million documents available to them, and it has announced a voluntary internal review due to conclude by the end of 2026.
The Jewish organisations, backed by the Senate panel, argue the opposite: that the investigation has surfaced material potentially falling outside the terms of the 1990s agreement. That position received support last month from Helen Junz, an economist and former member of the Volcker and Bergier Commissions that conducted the original 1990s inquiries into Swiss banks' wartime conduct. In a five-page letter to committee chairmen on 6 August, Junz criticised UBS for taking an overly broad reading of the 1998 settlement, writing that treating actively concealed Nazi-linked assets as covered was "inconsistent with, and violative of, the principles of good-faith that are the bargained-for core" of that agreement.
OMBUDSMAN CONFLICT AND NEXT STEPS
Relations between the bank and the ombudsman, Neil Barofsky, deteriorated sharply earlier in the year. In May, Barofsky wrote to the committee accusing UBS of making "false and misleading statements" concerning what he described as previously unreported examples of Credit Suisse executing forced transfers of Jewish clients' assets into accounts held by Nazi-affiliated banks, and of withholding records from the investigation. UBS responded publicly, rejecting his account as lacking objectivity, and declined his request for additional time, saying he should complete his report by the end of the year. In April, a US judge rejected an attempt by the bank to limit its liability over new findings relating to the accounts.
Grassley remains committed to a thorough investigation and continues to press UBS to cooperate fully and produce the records requested by the ombudsman, according to a committee official. The Iowa Republican intends to hold a further hearing on the matter, though no date has been set, and wants to establish a historical repository of Credit Suisse records connected to the accounts. For UBS, the timeline matters commercially as well as reputationally: the bank is simultaneously contesting Swiss proposals to raise its capital requirements, leaving management engaged on two fronts with legislators in Bern and Washington. The content and timing of its response to the 62 questions will indicate whether the dispute narrows toward a year-end conclusion or extends into 2027.