The hunt for Nazi accounts at Credit Suisse has UBS trembling.

Ronald Lauder was a key figure in a 1998 settlement that forced Swiss banks to pay $1.25 billion for managing the accounts of Holocaust victims. However, after the historic pact, he became convinced that the financial institutions should have contributed much more. “There were probably $5 to $10 billion left unfinished,” explains the president of the World Jewish Congress. The interview takes place in his Fifth Avenue office, a place filled with blurry black and white photos of Nazi victims.

Nearly three decades later, the billionaire son of the Estée Lauder founders saw his opportunity to right that wrong. “I said to myself, ‘We’re not going to make that mistake again.’” Lauder, an 81-year-old Jew, has waged a quiet campaign over the past five years to force Credit Suisse and its new owner, the UBS Group , to dig up the files and seek new evidence of the bank’s misappropriation of Holocaust victims’ money, as well as funds looted by the Nazis. With the support of the White House and the US Congress, he managed to prevent the bank from shelving an independent review, which has since been reopened. Now, that investigation is nearing completion and has recovered Credit Suisse records that were overlooked in the 1990s. Members of the U.S. Senate, who played a key role in driving the matter forward at the time, are demanding that the bank spare no effort and are committed to ensuring that Jewish organizations seeking justice are satisfied.

The case, which has required a search through the bank's archives, including thousands of dusty boxes of handwritten records, is the latest reminder of the costly and complex legacy UBS took on when it acquired Credit Suisse in 2023 , and how much remains unresolved. Evidence of this is that the bank has assigned more than 50 people to investigate the case, including forensic accountants, some of whom are working six days a week to complete the review. Washington has responded with praise for the bank's cooperative approach. Lauder maintains that UBS could face billions of dollars in restitution claims. Others argue that the 1990s settlement—paid for by UBS and Credit Suisse—was a landmark commitment that explicitly protects them from any potential future exposure. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker led the committee on which Lauder served to reach the agreement, which averted the threat of U.S. sanctions against Swiss banks and a boycott by U.S. states and municipalities.

New clues

Now, UBS executives hope the full investigation will finally put the matter behind them. The problem is that, until it's concluded, there's no way to know for sure what the cost to the financial institution might be, if any.

“UBS is committed to contributing to a comprehensive review of Credit Suisse's files related to Nazi-linked legacy accounts previously held at Credit Suisse's predecessor banks,” the bank said in a statement, highlighting its cooperation after hiring Neil Barofsky, an American lawyer overseeing the investigation and acting as a kind of ombudsman. “We are providing him with all necessary assistance to facilitate his review of Credit Suisse's files and thus continue to shed more light on this tragic historical period.”

The organization has not publicly revealed the figures it handles regarding potential compensation payments, nor has it said whether it has set aside a cushion to meet them. The problem is that unexpected surprises can arise. Forensic experts are examining a cache of Nazi documents found in the basement of Argentina's Supreme Court earlier this year. The government of Argentine President Javier Milei is facilitating the analysis of so-called ratlines , used to finance Nazis who fled to the South American country to escape justice.

The investigation comes amid a broader effort by UBS to address regulatory and other issues in the U.S., many of which surfaced after its hasty acquisition of the troubled Credit Suisse. In May, UBS agreed to pay $511 million to settle a U.S. investigation into Credit Suisse's role in helping wealthy Americans avoid taxes.

UBS's chief lawyer, Barbara Levi, is multiplying her meetings with people on Capitol Hill to try to convince them that the bank is actively collaborating in resolving the Nazi accounts issue. Because the problem for UBS isn't just the historical tragedy of the Holocaust. Getting along with regulators in the US is vital for the bank to expand its fund management business among wealthy Americans.

Before the acquisition, Credit Suisse executives considered the risk of further major revelations about Nazi records to be limited. However, within the bank, already plagued by other problems, anxiety is growing. Investigators won't be satisfied until the Jewish community is satisfied, according to a person familiar with the project who asked not to be identified. It should not be forgotten that the White House has made combating antisemitism a top priority. "It's not just a few accounts, it's a lot," says Kern Alexander, a professor of banking and financial law at the University of Zurich. "If they don't clean up the slate, they will face increased regulatory scrutiny from the authorities."

On the other hand, UBS’s cooperative approach has drawn criticism in Switzerland, where many in the financial establishment believe that any responsibility the banks may have had for their role in the Holocaust was covered by the 1990s agreement. At an event in Zurich in May to launch a book on the subject, Thomas Borer, a former Swiss diplomat who helped negotiate the pact, said that the 1.8 billion Swiss francs (then $1.25 billion) paid by the banks “released all Swiss people from further commitments.”

For decades, the Swiss denied any involvement in the Holocaust . But Jewish victims told a different story. They and their relatives in Germany and other Nazi-controlled areas had deposited millions in their banks while trying to flee the war. Survivors who tried to collect the money after the war faced constant obstacles, as bankers demanded death certificates and other legal documents for those who died in the concentration camps. Tens of millions remained out of reach in so-called dormant accounts.

It was in the 1990s that pressure from Washington forced the settlement. Lauder was appointed to the Volcker Commission, created to oversee the investigation. The Volcker panel found more than 50,000 accounts that likely belonged to Holocaust victims. UBS and Credit Suisse, which at the time were still independent, agreed to pay the settlement of lawsuits filed by the World Jewish Congress, among others, in a federal court in New York.

But the 1998 litigation focused on accounts belonging to victims, not Nazis, so this would be a new case, argues Burt Neuborne, a professor emeritus of law at New York University who was the lead lawyer for the pact. The current investigation has found evidence that Credit Suisse was not always transparent in its 1990s investigation. Preliminary findings released by the Senate cite examples, including the bank's knowing concealment of account records belonging to a senior Nazi official who represented a company known for using Jewish slave labor. If the investigation's final conclusion confirms the claim that the bank deliberately withheld records, this could raise questions about the 1990s deal, Neuborne believes. "I hope things have changed with the new generation, but in 1998, in my opinion, the banks had no qualms about hiding everything they could."

Credit Suisse wasn't the only bank that dragged its feet when it came to accounting for its past. Germany's Deutsche Bank refused for decades to clarify its connections to Nazism, hampering compensation efforts until 1999, when it emerged that the bank had financed the construction of Auschwitz.

“Negotiating blindly”

In the 1990s, Swiss banks rushed to reach a settlement while Holocaust survivors were still alive, Lauder recalls. “We didn’t have the full records, so we were negotiating in the dark,” she says. In early 2020, Lauder saw reports that the Simon Wiesenthal Center , known for its hunt for Nazis around the world, had uncovered a list of 12,000 Nazis in Argentina, many of whom had contributed money to accounts at a Credit Suisse predecessor bank upon fleeing at the end of the war. Some of the accounts remained open as recently as 2020. “The numbers are alarming. Where a Jew might have contributed $100,000, these Nazis were contributing $10 million or $20 million, or the equivalent,” Lauder says, noting that this money was likely stolen from Holocaust victims. “None of that was included in the 1990s settlement.”

Lauder, a longtime friend of President Donald Trump, is a prominent Republican donor. To undertake the review effort, he assembled a significant network that includes Brad Karp, chairman of the law firm Paul Weiss; and Dick Parsons, the former chairman of Citigroup, known for his connections in finance and government. Parsons died in 2024. To bolster the effort, they turned to Allen Vine, a Lauder ally and former Merrill Lynch banker with high-level connections in global finance. Andrés Hruska, a lawyer and former US attorney with years of experience representing Credit Suisse, also helped. They called their plan Project Rectitude. In addition to the opportunity to correct what they claimed was a historical wrong, they offered Credit Suisse political support if it wanted to rebuild its wealth management business in the lucrative US market, which it had abandoned a few years earlier. They also promised to release millions of German records, including financial accounts held by the Russian Defense Ministry, allowing the bank to preempt any potentially incriminating disclosures. Lauder, who had forged ties with the Kremlin during years of business dealings in Russia, arranged for the access.

Barofsky and his team found a wealth of previously unknown material in the Credit Suisse files, including account records from a company run by the Nazis' most vicious fighting force, the feared SS , according to a report published later. They also found details about the financing of the ratlines to help the Nazis escape from Europe.

Blacklist in the US

In 2021, two multi-billion-dollar frauds seriously compromised the bank's profits and added to the increased regulatory pressure that would lead to its acquisition by UBS. In late 2023, the bank opened its private archives to investigators, who found thousands of records, many handwritten, that the bank had not examined in previous reviews, including files flagged as an "American blacklist" for people with possible Nazi ties. There were also records of several hundred suspected Nazi intermediaries who helped hide gold, camouflage illicit transactions, and loot Jewish property, Barofsky stated in a letter to senators in December.

Credit Suisse's approach in the 1990s investigations was to "share only information that was specifically requested and not to offer additional information known to the bank," Barofsky wrote. He also informed the Senate that he will need several months to complete his report once the bank's investigators conclude their work later this year, but the volume of new revelations could delay it. The bank's files, including those of several predecessor institutions, span 300,000 square meters of shelving across multiple buildings and filing systems.

Lauder says he's determined to get things right. While investigations in the 1990s covered some of the funds held by Jewish depositors, new investigations have revealed what he claims are much larger amounts of looted assets held by the Nazis.

“We're operating in uncharted territory because no one has done this with Swiss banks. No one has reviewed their records, as we are now,” says Lauder. Behind him is a photograph of the members of the 1938 class of a Vienna high school. Only one has survived.