Thursday, 15 March 2012

Lawmakers vote to relax Swiss secrecy for Holocaust funds

ZURICH (Reuters)

- Swiss lawmakers on Wednesday voted to relax strict secrecy laws to make it easier to liquidate unclaimed accounts held in Swiss banks, a major step forward in efforts to deal with wealth hidden by Jews from the Nazis during the Second World War. Though Switzerland's UBS and Credit Suisse reached a $1.25 billion deal with Holocaust survivors and their descendants in 1998, the Swiss government has spent years attempting to amend banking secrecy laws to try to deal with unclaimed accounts.

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