A lawyer who has been conducting a yearslong investigation of Credit Suisse’s history during the World War II era has uncovered previously unreported relationships between the bank and Nazis, according to written testimony the investigator is expected to deliver at a Senate hearing on Tuesday.
A 75-page written statement by the lawyer, Neil M. Barofsky, says that Credit Suisse or other Swiss banks that later merged with it held accounts for the German foreign office, which helped deport Jews to concentration camps, and for an SS officer who managed funds for the Nazi paramilitary force’s economic arm. The bank had denied those accusations a generation ago.
“What the investigation has found to date shows that Credit Suisse’s involvement was more extensive than was previously known, and it underscores the importance of continuing to engage in research efforts about this horrific era of modern history,” Mr. Barofsky’s written statement said.
UBS bought Credit Suisse in 2023 and rehired Mr. Barofsky after Credit Suisse had fired him. Mr. Barofsky’s prepared statement largely praises UBS for being cooperative and having “dedicated a significant outlay of resources to this investigation.”
In its own written testimony submitted to the Judiciary Committee, Rob Karofsky, the president of UBS Americas, said that when his bank took over Credit Suisse, it “fully committed” to getting Mr. Barofsky’s “work back on track so it could be completed, according to the agreed-upon scope and in a reasonable amount of time.”
A draft of Mr. Barofsky’s statement has been circulating among members of the Senate Judiciary Committee ahead of the hearing and was shown to The New York Times. It says his team also uncovered a wartime account for a Nazi arms manufacturer and previously unreported forced transfers of Jewish assets into Nazi-controlled accounts.
It also described how he had learned that Credit Suisse rented an office — and provided banking services — to an Argentine government agency that helped Nazis flee to Argentina.
Credit Suisse was itself an amalgam of smaller Swiss banks, some of which provided services to Germans during the era when Nazis were looting the assets of Jewish victims. Nearly three decades ago, Credit Suisse agreed to take part in a $1.25 billion settlement with Holocaust survivors.
But in 2021, the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights group named for a famed Nazi hunter, accused the bank of not having been fully forthcoming about its historical role, including banking ties to German Nazis who went to Argentina.
The bank hired a forensic accounting firm and then Mr. Barofsky, a partner at Jenner & Block, to investigate its archives. A former prosecutor, he had served as inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program after the 2008 financial crisis, and since 2014 as an independent monitor for Credit Suisse after it pleaded guilty to helping American clients evade taxes.
In late 2022, however, the bank fired him. In early 2023, Senators Charles E. Grassley of Iowa and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, then the top Republican and Democrat on the Budget Committee, opened an investigation and subpoenaed the bank for reports by its auditor and by Mr. Barofsky.
At the same time, the bank was undergoing financial turbulence during a global banking panic, which led to its sale to UBS. Amid that turmoil, Mr. Grassley and Mr. Whitehouse released the subpoenaed reports, and new leadership rehired Mr. Barofsky.
The statements from Mr. Barofsky and Mr. Karofsky indicated that there is a dispute between them: Mr. Barofsky is seeking access to about 150 pages of communications between Credit Suisse and its lawyers in the 1990s that the bank says are covered by attorney-client privilege and could be subject to litigation with the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
“Materials from the 1990s are not within the scope” of the investigation, which is intended to be focused on Credit Suisse’s history and World War II-era conduct, said Mr. Karofsky, the UBS Americas president, in his statement. “This investigation was never meant to be focused on whether and how to reopen the 1999 settlement agreement.”
Mr. Grassley, who is now the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, also previewed some of Mr. Barofsky’s findings for reporters on Monday, saying: “Shining light on Credit Suisse’s past is part of turning the page, a very dark chapter of history.”
A Judiciary Committee aide said that Mr. Barofsky was expected to complete his investigation with a report by the end of the year, but that the archives were so vast that his team had not been able to vet every page. Mr. Grassley is pushing for the creation of a public repository for researchers because fully examining the records could take decades, the aide said.
Charlie Savage writes about national security and legal policy for The Times.
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