war and terror

This page considers money laundering and asset freezing in relation to war and terrorism.

It covers -

• introduction
• frameworks
• custodians
• aftermaths
• studies

     custodians

At the start of World War I and II the allied governments implemented legislation to freeze bank accounts and other assets belonging to residents of enemy countries. The intention was to prevent the enemy from benefiting from any assets held in locations controlled by the other side.

Freezing included assets of 'technical enemies', residents of countries who were enemies by virtue of their occupation by 'belligerent enemies', eg Poland, France, Norway and Czechoslovakia because of occupation by Nazi Germany and parts of Asia because of occupation by Japan.

     aftermaths

Following WWII many previously frozen assets were aggregated by the Australian, UK and other governments for transferred to relevant foreign governments which undertook to directly meet claims by their own citizens. Some assets, including bank accounts, were returned to original owners or unfrozen.

A point of contention was that some accounts released to the banks by governments were never claimed, for example because account holders or their heirs were not aware of their existence or because institutions imposed substantial barriers (eg Swiss banks required death certificates for victims of German death camps).

     studies

For the 1939-45 War points of entry to the literature include The Art of Cloaking Ownership: The Secret collaboration and Protection of the German War Industry by the Neutrals - The Case of Sweden (Amsterdam: Amsterdam Uni Press 1996) by Gerard Aalders & Cees Wiebes, supplemented by PDF and Ulf Olsson's 1998 Stockholms Enskilda Bank and the Bosch Group, 1939-1950 (txt), Unholy trinity: the Vatican, the Nazis, and the Swiss banks (New York: St Martin's 1998) by Mark Aarons & John Loftus, The Swiss, the Gold, and the Dead: how Swiss bankers helped finance the Nazi war machine (New York: Harcourt 1998) by Jean Ziegler, the Swiss Independent Commission of Experts (ICE) reports, the 1998 FCO report British policy towards enemy property during and after the Second World War (PDF) and NARA bibliography.

For more recent times see The Management of Political Risk in Dictatorial Environments: European Investment in Latin America, Eastern Europe and Asia (New York: Berghahn 2004) edited by Christopher Kobrak


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