Private bank Julius Baer has to pay Germany 150 million francs that belonged to the GDR. But the decision by Switzerland’s highest court still isn’t the end of the saga.
The Swiss Federal Supreme Court ordered Julius Baer to pay some 150 million Swiss francs ($162 million) to Germany, according to a statement released on Friday. The court confirmed a 2019 ruling by a Zurich court.
Julius Baer, a private bank based in Zurich, in 2019 set aside 153 million francs as a provision for the case ruling. The money is comprised of an original amount of some 97 million francs plus accrued interest since 1994.
Hunting for Lost Treasures
The German authority that demanded the payment from Julius Baer was founded explicitly to secure assets from the defunct German Democratic Republic for the reunified country. The legal proceedings against Julius Baer date back to 2014.
Julius Baer became a target for the Germany public institution because it had assumed Bank Cantrade in its takeover of Bank Ehinger & Armand von Ernst in 2005. The Eastern German government’s foreign trade division had assets deposited at Cantrade.
Unauthorized Withdrawals
After the collapse of the Soviet bloc, an Austrian trustee had taken charge of about half a billion francs in assets that belonged to Eastern Germany. Some of that money had been put on accounts at Cantrade. Germany argued that Cantrade had allowed unauthorized withdrawals of cash between 1990 and 1992 from an account of the foreign trade company of GDR.
After the final verdict by the Supreme Court has been passed, Julius Baer now wants to get the money back from UBS, because it had bought Bank Ehinger & Armand von Ernst from Switzerland’s No.1. The private bank had earlier announced its intention to claim the money back and today confirmed this claim in the statement.
