THE HOLOCAUST RESTITUTION MOVEMENT IN
COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE
Paper
presented at the Association of
Genocide Scholars
Fourth
Biennial Conference – June, 2001
Minneapolis, MN
Michael J. Bazyler
Professor of Law
Whittier Law School
Costa Mesa, California
USA
and
Research Fellow
Holocaust Educational
Trust
London, UK
Tel: 714.444.4141 x.216
bazyler@aol.com
I. INTRODUCTION
This
paper examines the role of law in dealing with genocide and other gross human
rights abuses. The focus is on the
use of civil litigation as an instrument for achieving some measure of justice
for human rights violations, separately and apart from bringing criminal
proceedings against the perpetrators.
The
specific scenario examined is the Holocaust restitution movement in the United
States, whose aim is to obtain financial
restitution from European and American corporations[i] for their nefarious
activities during World War II. The
paper then examines other movements
for historical wrongs, which arose as a direct result of the successes achieved
in the Holocaust restitution arena.
Three such prominent movements are: (1) the lawsuits filed by victims of
Japan and Japanese industry for wrongs committed during World War II; (2) the emerging call for African-American
reparations stemming from
slavery; and (3) the recent claims being made by
survivors of the Armenian genocide for insurance proceeds paid by their deceased
relatives. All of these movements are a direct outgrowth of the
successes achieved in the Holocaust restitution arena.
The fact that American courts are being
used today to deal with wrongs committed during World War II – over one-half
century after the events took place – is astounding. In the history of American
litigation, a class of cases has never appeared in which so much time had passed
between the wrongful act and the filing of a lawsuit. Most surprisingly, the recent spate of
Holocaust restitution lawsuits, for
the most part, have been successful. This is in contrast to Holocaust-era suits
filed between 1945 and 1995, when
less than one dozen lawsuits were
filed in American courts seeking compensation for World War II-era wrongs, with
most of these being summarily
dismissed.[ii]
As a result of the U.S.-based litigation, and concomitant political
efforts, taken place over the last six years – an astoundingly short period of time
– pledges to settle Holocaust-era
claims now total over $8 billion.
The
Holocaust did not occur in the United States, but in Europe. Most Holocaust survivors also
reside outside of the United
States. It is the United States
legal system, however, that has taken
the lead in delivering some measure of long-overdue justice to aging
Holocaust survivors.
Why
the United States? As with all
transnational litigation today, the highly-developed and expansive system of
American justice makes the United States the best – and, in most instances, the
only – legal forum for the disposition of such claims. American courts have a long history of
recognizing jurisdiction over defendants where courts of other countries would
find jurisdiction lacking. American-style discovery, mostly unknown in Europe, allows the
plaintiffs" lawyer to develop the case through production of documents requests,
requests for admission, and depositions of adverse parties and witnesses during
the pre-trial process, rather than having all the evidence available at the
outset of the litigation.
Guarantee of jury trials in
civil cases – and a culture where juries are accustomed to granting awards in
the millions (or even billions) of dollars[iii], both as
compensation and as punitive damages – makes the filing of a Holocaust-era
lawsuit in the United States more likely of financial success. The existence of the concept of a "class
action", where representative plaintiffs can file suit not only on their behalf,
but also on behalf of all others similarly situated, creates a more efficient
system of filing suits and raises the prospect of large awards against the
wrongdoers.[iv]
Moreover, American attorneys are greater
risk-takers than their European counterparts, and, unlike in most other
countries, can take a case on a "contingency basis"–where the client does not
pay if the case is unsuccessful, but must share a percentage of the award if the
case succeeds. Moreover, in the
United States, a losing party, except in unusual cases, does not pay the
attorneys' fees of the successful
litigant. As a result, an American
lawyer has less to lose if the case fails, and, therefore, is more likely to
file suit.[v]
.
The recognition of American courts as the most desirable forum for
transnational litigation was recognized by the great British jurist Lord Denning, when he wryly
observed in an English court opinion: "As a moth is drawn to light, so is a
litigant drawn to the United States.
If he can only get his case into their courts, he stands to win a
fortune."[vi]
The stark reality, however, is that until
recently, a Holocaust-era lawsuit would have been summarily dismissed if brought
in the United States.[vii] What made these lawsuits possible is the
development of human rights law by courts in the United States over the last two
decades. An American court today is
more likely to allow a human rights case to proceed forward even if (1)
the
acts complained of did not occur in the United States and (2) are brought by a foreign plaintiff.
The
recognition of such suits began with the seminal opinion of Filartiga v.
Pena[viii], where the Second Circuit of the Court of
Appeals held that the Paraguayan father and sister of a victim of
state-sanctioned torture and killing committed in Paraguay can sue the
perpetrator, a government official, if the perpetrator is found in the United
States.[ix]
This decision opened the door to a number of other
human rights victims injured abroad also to successfully bring suit in the
United States.[x] In 1992, Congress confirmed the right of
victims of foreign torture
to sue in American courts by enacting the Torture Victims Protection Act
(hereinafter "TVPA"). [xi].
Without the groundwork laid
out by Filartiga , the cases
that followed it, and the TVPA, the recently-filed Holocaust-era cases
surely would have been summarily dismissed.
II. HOLOCAUST RESTITUTION EFFORTS IN THE
UNITED STATES
A. CASES AGAINST EUROPEAN BANKS
1. Swiss banks litigation
The modern era of Holocaust
asset litigation began in October
1996 with the filing of a class a class action lawsuit against the three largest
private Swiss banks – Credit Suisse, Union Bank of Switzerland ( hereinafter
"UBS") and Swiss Bank Corporation – in federal district court in Brooklyn, New
York. Thereafter, two other
lawsuits were filed against the
same banks , with all three actions
consolidated in April 1997 as In re Holocaust Victim Assets
Litigation, and heard by Judge Edward R. Korman, one of the heroes of this
litigation.[xii]
The consolidated lawsuits
made three types of accusations against the Swiss banks:
(1) that the banks failed to
return moneys deposited with them by Jews seeking a safe haven for their assets
in the face of persecution by the Nazis – since such moneys are alleged to have
been lain dormant in Swiss banks for the last half-century, these claims became
known as the "dormant account" claims; (2) that the banks traded in assets
looted from the Jews by the Nazis – these became known as the "looted assets"
claims; and (3) that the banks traded in assets made by slave labor which were
then sold, and the sale proceeds
deposited with the banks – these became known as the "slave labor"
claims.[xiii]
The lawsuits alleged that the banks, for the dormant account claims, set up
specious requirements, such as the necessity by heirs to produce death
certificates for Holocaust victims, as a reason for failing to return funds
deposited with them for safekeeping, and for the latter two categories, accepted
deposits from the Nazis knowing that the funds deposited were either looted from
Jews or came from sale of goods made by Jewish slave labor.[xiv].
The Swiss banks, in response
to the suits, filed voluminous motions to dismiss, setting out numerous reasons
why the lawsuits could not proceed.[xv] In addition to arguing that American
courts lacked jurisdiction over these claims and that the claims were
time-barred, the banks contended that they were already dealing with the
problem; specifically, by publishing a list of dormant accounts and by creating the so-called Independent
Committee of Eminent Persons ("ICEP"), chaired by Paul Volcker, the former head
of the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, to both
process claims made against them by Holocaust survivors or heirs and to reexamine their actions during
the war. According to the banks, "Plaintiffs were not required to come to a court of law to seek redress. .
.[S]uperior, cooperative mechanisms are available, and those alternatives become
more attractive every day."[xvi]
In June, 1998, while Judge
Korman was considering their motions, the banks made, what they called, their
first and last offer to settle the claims: $600 million.[xvii]
In the meantime, a number of
political factors came into the picture.
First, the Senate Banking Committee, headed by Senator Alfonse D'Amato,
began holding hearings on the issue.
Second, a number of state
and local governments threatened to stop doing business with the Swiss banks
unless they settled the claims.
Third, the United States government issued a report, written by
then-Undersecretary of State (and later Deputy Treasury Secretary and Special
Representative of the President and the Secretary of State for Holocaust Issues)
Stuart Eizenstat, sharply criticizing the Swiss for their World War II dealings
with the Nazis
Finally, UBS, now undergoing a merger with co-defendant Swiss Bank
Corporation, was caught attempting to shred World War II-era financial documents, in contravention of a
newly-enacted Swiss law forbidding such actions.[xviii]
In August, 1998, the banks
doubled their offer, and, under Judge Korman"s guidance,
settled the case for $1.25
billion. Rather than a lump-sum payment, the banks agreed to
pay the $1.25 billion in four installments over three years, with the
final payment to be made in November 2000 .
The settlement agreement
sets out five classes of claimants eligible to receive payments from the $ 1.25
billion fund:
(1 ) the "Deposited Assets
Class," consisting of "Victims or Targets of Nazi Persecution" (hereinafter
"VTNP") claimants and their heirs seeking to recover World War II-era assets
deposited in a Swiss bank prior to May 9 1945 (the end of World War II in
Europe);
(2) the "Looted Assets
Class," consisting of VTNP claimants and their heirs seeking to recover
compensation for assets belonging to them and stolen by the Nazis, which made
their way to the Swiss banks;
(3) "Slave Labor Class I,"
consisting of VTNP claimants who performed slave labor for companies that
deposited assets derived from that slave labor in Switzerland;
(4) "Slave Labor Class II,"
consisting of individuals who performed slave labor at a facility or business or
business concern headquartered, organized, or based in Switzerland; and
(5) the "Refugee Class,"
consisting of individuals who sought entry into Switzerland to escape the Nazis
and were either denied entry, or, after gaining entry, were either sent back or
mistreated by the Swiss.
One of the most striking
elements about the Swiss settlement is that the class of recipients is not limited to Jews. Rather, it also contemplates that, in
addition to Jewish victims, the following four groups persecuted by the Nazis
are also VTNPs and, therefore, will receive a part of the $1.25 billion
settlement: (1) homosexuals; (2) physically or mentally disabled or handicapped
persons; (3) the Romani (Gypsy) peoples; and (4) Jehovah's Witnesses.[xix] This non-Jewish victim group
included in the settlement, however, is small, and excludes the entire category
of Slavic peoples–primarily Poles and Russians–forced to work as slave laborers
for the Nazis. These victims of
Nazi persecution will not receive anything from the Swiss settlement, but must
await recovery from the slave labor settlement finalized with Germany (see
discussion below)..
In return for $1.25 billion,
plaintiffs agreed to drop all lawsuits against the Swiss banks being sued. In addition, the settlement
released not only the defendant banks but also "the government of Switzerland,
the Swiss National Bank, all other Swiss banks, and all other members of Swiss
industry, except for the three Swiss insurers who are defendants in the [federal
class action insurance litigation (see discussion below)]."[xx] Finally, as a condition of
settlement, all sanctions and threats of sanctions against Switzerland and any
of its businesses were dropped
In effect, the settlement
agreement obtained by the two private Swiss banks insulates the entire nation of
Switzerland and all its businesses from any kind of litigation – anywhere in the
world – having any connection to World War II. .
The case marks a milestone in American litigation
as, at that time, the largest
settlement of a human rights case in United States history. Asked to explain the banks' sudden
reversal of their position, Rabbi
Marvin Heir, head of the Los-Angeles based
Simon Wiesenthal Center, commented: "It was for only one reason: they
were pressured into it. Without the
pressure, with Sen. D'Amato's banking committee, without the threat of
sanctions, the Holocaust survivors would have gotten nothing."[xxi] The Financial Times came to the
same conclusion:
The clearest lesson from the
Swiss banks' $1 .25bn settlement
with holocaust survivors is
this: threatening to impose sanctions
can work. Every important
breakthrough in the negotiations
came soon after threats from
US local government officials to
impose
sanctions (banning, for example, Swiss banks from
certain kinds of business in New York). The settlement
itself came two weeks before a threat to start the sanctions
and a week after Moody's, the rating agency,
published
a report saying that UBS, Switzerland's (and Europe's)
biggest bank, might lose its triple-A rating if sanctions
were imposed.[xxii]
In accordance with American
federal class action rules, Judge Korman held a hearing in November, 1999 to
confirm the fairness of the settlement, and in July, 2000 finalized it. . Distribution is set to begin later this
year. .
The current status of the
Swiss banks settlement is available at <www.swissbankclaims.com>.
2. German and Austrian banks
litigation
German and Austrian banks
maintained close business relationships with the Nazis, and profited handsomely
from such dealings. Deutsche Bank,
Germany's largest bank, financed the building of Auschwitz.[xxiii] A historical report of Dresdner Bank
found that in Nazi-occupied lands the saying went, "Right after the first German
tank comes Dr. Rasche from the Dresdner Bank."[xxiv]
In June 1998, three
Holocaust survivors, all American citizens, filed a class action lawsuit against
the two German banks, charging them with profiteering from the looting of gold
and personal property of Jews.
Thereafter, other lawsuits were filed against these two banks and other
German and Austrian banks for their World War II-era activities.
In March 1999, the lawsuits
were consolidated as In re Austrian and German Bank Holocaust Litigation
in the Southern District of New York before Judge Shirley Wohl Kram[xxv]. That same month, Bank Austria and its
recently-purchased subsidiary, Creditanstalt, settled the lawsuits against them
for $40 million. A fairness hearing
was held on November 1999,
and Judge Kram approved the settlement in
January 2000.[xxvi]
As
of June, 2001 , no moneys have yet
been distributed from the settlement.
The current status of the Austrian banks settlement is available at
<www.austrianbankclaims.com>.
Litigation
against the German banks continued.
However, the "rough justice" settlement reached with the German
government and industry in December 1999, and finalized in July, 2000,
(see discussion below) also included the settlement of the claims made
against the German banks.
3.
French banks litigation
After
the Nazis conquered France, French banks began to confiscate the accounts of
their Jewish depositors in a process known as "Aryanization" of the
accounts.
In
late 1997 and early 1998 two class actions were filed against one-half dozen
French banks in federal court in New York, followed by another action in
California state court in San Francisco.[xxvii] The defendant French banks all do business in the United States,
and plaintiffs were both American nationals and foreigners.
The
lawsuits also named the British bank, Barclays Bank, and two U.S. financial institutions, Chase
Manhattan Bank and J.P Morgan & Co.
These banks had branches in France during the war, and are alleged also
to have participated in the confiscation of the assets of their Jewish
depositors.
In
July, 1999, Barclays settled for $3.6 million, to be paid to the families of its
Jewish customers in France who lost their assets during the Nazi
occupation.
The
other banks declined to settle, and
filed motions to dismiss.
The motions were denied[xxviii], and, as a
result, a settlement was achieved in the last days of the Clinton Administration
through the efforts of Stuart Eizenstat, appointed by Clinton as special envoy
for Holocaust restitution issues.
The banks agreed to
establish two funds to compensate claimants for assets seized by the French
banks during the occupation. One
fund, with no limits, will pay claimants who have documentation or some other
substantiated proof of wartime assets held in French banks. The second fund, capped at $22.5
million, will compensate claimants with less proof, known as "soft claims", who
will present their case to a commission. Each of the soft claims approved by the
commission will be paid at least
$1500.
B. CASES AGAINST EUROPEAN INSURANCE
COMPANIES
In
the time before the two world wars,
insurance policies and annuities were popular investment vehicles in
Europe. Jews in pre-war Europe
often purchased insurance, and an insurance policy was known as a "poor man"s
Swiss bank account."
.
The European insurance company with the most notoriety in the field of
Holocaust-era restitution is Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A., the largest
insurance company in Italy, and owner of Israell"s largest insurer, Migdal. Generali, as the company is commonly
known, was founded in 1831 by a
group of Jewish merchants, and, until recently, its chairman was a Jewish
survivor of Auschwitz. In pre-war
Europe, Generali was known as a "Jewish company, whose agents saturated the
major Jewish population centers before the war."[xxix] In a situation akin to the failure by
the Swiss banks to return moneys deposited with them prior to the war, Generali,
along with other European
insurers, has been accused
of failing to honor policies purchased from them by Holocaust victims in pre-war
Europe.[xxx]
The
other insurance company with a large stake in the pre-war European market is
Allianz of Germany, presently the second largest insurance concern in the world. Allianz's CEO, Kurt Schmidt, was
Hitler's Minister of Economy.
Allianz also insured a number of concentration camps, including Auschwitz
and Dachau.
Upon coming to
power in Germany, the Nazis' persecution of Jews included confiscation
of
insurance policies from its Jewish citizenry. A particularly poignant example of the
theft of insurance proceeds by the
Nazis, and German insurers' collusion in such theft, occurred in the aftermath
of Kristalnacht, in November 1938.
Since many of the Jewish merchants, whose shops and other properties were damaged or
looted during the campaign, held casualty insurance to cover such losses, the
Nazis ordered the insurance companies to pay all such claims to the state rather
than to the injured parties. In a
deal made with the insurers, the companies were allowed to expunge the claims of
their Jewish policyholders by
paying only a fraction of the claims' value to the German state.[xxxi]
Beginning
in 1997, two class action lawsuits were filed against more than one-dozen
European insurers in federal court in New York, followed by six individual
actions in California state court.
The claims were brought either by Holocaust survivors or heirs, with the
insurance companies sued doing business in the United States.
As
with the Swiss bank litigation, political pressure has been an important
component in either settlement, or, at the least, in bringing the European insurers to the
bargaining table.
In
1997, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, composed of the
insurance regulators in all fifty states, created a working group on Holocaust
and insurance issues. Some of the
regulators began holding hearings, inviting the companies to explain their
reasons for non-payment of these pre-war policies. Since insurance companies in America are
regulated at the state level, and receive their licenses to operate from the
state, the commissioners began threatening to revoke the licenses of the
European insurers for failure to honour these claims.
Prodded by
the commissioners from California, New York and Florida, which contain the largest concentration of Holocaust
survivors in the United States, five of the insurers sued – including Generali
and Allianz [xxxii]– formed (and
funded) the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, commonly
known as ICHEIC, headed by former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence
Eagleburger.[xxxiii]
Following
the model of the Swiss banks' ICEP, ICHEIC, likewise, is
intended to be a non-adversarial
alternative to the American
litigation brought against the insurance companies. In February 2000, after numerous
delays, ICHEIC announced that it would began a two-year claim process to locate
and pay unpaid Holocaust-era insurance policies. That same month, ICHEIC began placing
advertisements in newspapers and journals
world-wide soliciting Holocaust survivors and heirs to submit
claims.
Unfortunately,
to date ICHEIC has done a poor job.
By May, 2001, it distributed only $3 million to claimants, while spending
more than $30 million in expenses.[xxxiv] Eagleburger's annual salary alone
is $350,000.[xxxv] The individual California lawsuits, five
of which have settled, have yielded
higher payments than the amounts distributed through ICHEIC.[xxxvi] While the settlement terms remain
confidential, the New York Times reported that one of the California
cases alonesettled for $ 1.25 million.[xxxvii]
The current status of the ICHEIC claims settlement process is available
at <www..icheic.org>.
C. CASES STEMMING FROM THE USE OF GERMAN
AND AUSTRIAN SLAVE LABOR
Between
eight and ten million people were
forced to work as laborers in factories
and
camps in Germany, Austria and
throughout occupied Europe during World War II. Approximately 1 1/4 million of these laborers – now
elderly -- are alive today.
The
reparations program to Jewish
victims of Nazi persecution promulgated by West Germany (see discussion below)
specifically excluded payment for slave labor. Former German slave laborers found
themselves in a "Catch-22" situation: the German government claimed that it was
not obligated to make payments to them because the laborers worked during the
war for private German firms; German industry, on the other hand, argued that
any payments should come from government coffers, since, German firms claimed,
they were forced to use the slave laborers to support the Nazi war effort. [xxxviii]
In
October 1998, the then-newly-elected Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder reversed
German government policy by announcing the creation of a fund to compensate the
former slave laborers. By that
time, however, American plaintiffs' lawyers, emboldened by their success with
the Swiss bank litigation, had already begun filing suits in American courts
against various German – and even American – companies on behalf of the slave
laborers, living both in the United States and abroad.
Eventually,
close to forty separate lawsuits were filed in various courts throughout the
United States against numerous German companies which used slave labor during
World War II.
These
slave labor lawsuits constituted the largest category of cases filed in the
United States stemming from the Holocaust.
On September 13, 1999, the claimants
suffered a serious setback in the litigation. That day, two federal judges sitting in
New Jersey issued separate opinions dismissing five of the lawsuits. Judge Joseph Greenaway, Jr. dismissed
the lawsuit against Ford Motor Company and its German subsidiary Ford Werke,
filed by a Belgian national who was
deported by the Nazis from the Soviet Union and forced to work at the Ford Werke
plant in Cologne.[xxxix] . Judge Dickinson R.
Debevoise dismissed four separate lawsuits against German companies Degussa and
Siemens[xl].
Both judges held that the
suits were non-justiciable, specifically that they were precluded by the
treaties entered into by Germany and the Allied powers after the war. Judge
Greenaway also found some claims against Ford to be time-barred.
The dismissals were
appealed, but eventually became moot when German government and industry, in
December 1999, entered into a
preliminary settlement with the plaintiffs' lawyers and representatives of
Jewish organizations to resolve all slave labor and related claims[xli] for DM 10 billion (approximately $4.8
billion). While the total amount
may seem significant, it appears that each survivor will receive a lump sum
payment of only between $2,500 and $7,500.[xlii]
It took over one and
one-half years to finalize the German slave labor settlement. Final resolution
was achieved in May, 2001 , when the German parliament gave final approval to a
law funding the settlement fund.[xliii] Distribution of the funds to the aging
survivors is set to begin in the latter half of 2001 .
Under the contemplated
scheme for distribution, those forced by the Nazis to work to death – slave
laborers, and primarily Jews – who survived the war and are still living will
receive payments up to $7,500.
According to some estimates,
approximately 240,000 former slave labor claimants are alive today..[xliv] Former forced laborers –primarily
non-Jews and estimated to number today approximately 1 million – will be awarded $2,500 each.
In return for the settlement, the
plaintiffs' attorneys agreed to
drop all the pending slave labor
suits. To block future litigation, the
United States government, as part of the deal, agreed to intervene on behalf of
German defendants in any future lawsuit for wartime slave labor filed in the United States. As with the Swiss banks' $1..25 billion settlement, Germany and
its entire private industry, for DM
10 billion, have bought for
themselves complete legal peace from bothersome American litigation.
The Germans have conceded
that, after a half-century of failing to recognize the claims of the slave
laborers, the fear of American litigation is what finally brought them to the
bargaining table.
Chancellor Schroeder, announcing in
February 1999, the establishment of a fund for slave laborers (then set at $1 .7
billion) explicitly stated that the
fund was being established "to
counter lawsuits, particularly class action suits, and to remove the basis of
the campaign being led against German industry and our country."[xlv] German industry, in a website devoted to
charting the progress of the settlement fund, stated: "For the Foundation to be
established and for the funds to be made available, it is an indispensable
prerequisite that the enterprises have full and lasting legal certainty, in
other words, that they are safe from legal action in the future."[xlvi] To make this point, Germany delayed finalizing the
settlement until all the lawsuits in the United States were dismissed. This fear of American litigation and
Germany's requirement of "legal
peace" added another six months to the settlement process, when one American
federal district court judge, contrary to the wishes of the U.S. government,
asserted her judicial independence and refused to dismiss the slave labor suits
against the German companies until she was satisfied that the settlement was
fair.[xlvii] Following
the German precedent, the Austrian government and Austrian industry likewise
agreed to compensate its former slave laborers and other victims of its
policies. .
Under a preliminary
agreement reached in October, 2000, Austria pledged $500 million to settle claims
for Holocaust-era seizures On
January 17, 2001 , it agreed to add $210 million, and $20 million in interest,
for other property claims and unpaid insurance policies. An additional $ 112 million was pledged
for social benefits, such as pensions and $8 million for a land swap – a total
package of $500 million.
Earlier, Austria agreed to
compensate former slave and forced laborers, setting aside approximately $410
million, and to supplement those payments with an additional $ 112 million for
pension payments to Jewish victims who fled Austria as children.
III.
WORLD WAR II-ERA CLAIMS AGAINST JAPANESE COMPANIES[xlviii]
The suits
for Holocaust restitution have now led
to claims being filed against Japanese corporations for their use of
captured soldiers and civilians as
slaves during World War II.[xlix] Without a doubt, the claims against the
Japanese multinationals are a direct result of the earlier litigation brought
against their European counterparts.
Aging victims of Japan's wartime activities began filing their lawsuits
in American courts only after seeing the successes achieved by their
counterparts in the Holocaust litigation.[l]
Over 36,000
American soldiers became Japanese prisoners of war during World War II. The Japanese also captured nearly 14,
000 American civilians.
Approximately 25,000 American prisoners were then shipped to Japan and
Japan-occupied Asia to work for private Japanese companies.[li] These companies
are now some of the largest corporate concerns in the world: Mitsubishi, Mitsui,
Nippon Steel, Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and at least forty other Japanese
companies[lii]
Additionally, the Japanese captured
tens of thousands of British, Canadian, Australian and New Zealand
soldiers, who also toiled as slave laborers for Japanese industry..
Local
Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese and Philippine civilians also were used as slaves by
these companies.[liii]
The first
World War II-era restitution
lawsuit was filed in July,
1999, by former POW Ralph Levenberg against Nippon Sharyo Ltd. and its U.S.
subsidiary.[liv] The suit was
filed in federal district court in San Francisco. Other lawsuits followed in other jurisdictions.[lv] Eventually, all
such litigation gravitated to California, as a result of a state law enacted in
July, 1999 permitting an action by a "prisoner-of-war of the Nazi regime, its
allies or sympathizers" to "recover compensation for labor performed as a Second
World War slave victim. . . . from any entity or successor in interest
thereof, for whom that labor was
performed. . . .[lvi] The California statute extended
the limitations period for filing such lawsuits until 2010.[lvii]
The statute was passed at the time that the negotiations with the German companies for compensation for their WWII use of slave labor was stalled, and so its goal was to allow lawsuits against these German companies to proceed in California.