Philadelphia, PA - Victims Can Sue German Firms For Interest On Payments

Philadelphia, PA - Victims of Nazi-era crimes can pursue additional money from German companies that paid $2.5 billion into a reparation fund for U.S. claims, a federal appeals court ruled.

The victims can sue for interest stemming from a six- to nine-month period when they say payments to the fund were delayed, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia said.
The decision reverses a lower-court ruling that said the dispute over interest was a political question, not a matter for the courts, because U.S. and German officials had negotiated the 1999 fund agreement.

The German firms argued that the agreement capped their interest payments at 100 million Deutsche marks, or about $50 million at the time. The six named plaintiffs, all Nazi camp survivors living in the U.S., argued that the figure represented the minimum amount of interest, not a cap.

Through the fund, victims received $500 to $15,000 each for years of forced labor.