http://www.jungewelt.de/2001/03-07/001.shtml
So much for the 'sense of historic responsibility'.
Johannes
>From Wednesday's FAZ at www.faz.com
German Business Calls for Immunity Before Compensation Payments Begin
By Jürgen Jeske
New class action suits filed recently have awakened fears in both Germany and the United States of an end to the legal cease-fire for German companies in the United States in return for already agreed reparation payments for former forced laborers during World War II. German companies are demanding immunity from further lawsuits on reparation payments provided they abide by an agreement from last year whereby German companies and government will pay a combined DM10 billion ($4.8 billion) to a reparation fund for former forced laborers.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's emissary on this issue, Otto Graf Lambsdorff, expects the Bush administration to issue a statement on the reparation agreement outlining the U.S. government's interest in a legal cease-fire. Meanwhile, it is expected that Mr. Lambsdorff's U.S. counterpart, Stuart Eizenstat, will have his mandate extended for an additional two months.
Mr. Lambsdorff hopes that U.S. Federal Judge Shirley Wohl Kram from New York will dismiss the important class action suit against German banks. Pointing to the fact that an initial, disputed case -- Frumkin v. J.A. Jones, Philipp Holzmann et al. -- had been dismissed by Federal Judge William Bassler, he said that one need not wait until June for a precedent ruling in the latest case. Once Judge Kram has dismissed the suit against the banks, Mr. Lambsdorff will initiate intensive talks with the reparation fund's overseers to reach an agreement regarding German companies' demands for limited legal immunity as quickly as possible.
Those in charge of the reparation fund are holding to their opinion that all cases in the United States have to first be retracted, dismissed or decided in appeal before payments commence. Mr. Lambsdorff was also of this opinion for a long time, Manfred Gentz, board member at Daimler-Chrysler and head of the reparation fund, said in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Mr. Lambsdorff has drifted from this stance in past months, although he said last year that all pending suits had to be dismissed by July 17, 2000, Mr. Gentz said.
"He is deviating from what had been agreed on, and is in principle prepared to give up on the criteria of legal immunity. That is certainly a difficult step for industry to take; one it actually cannot do," Mr. Gentz said, adding that the fund initiative has received numerous letters from members declaring that the money they contributed may not be disbursed unless legal immunity is granted.
Mr. Gentz has meanwhile supported this stance in a letter to Mr. Lambsdorff addressing his public declaration. Copies also went to the Chancellor, the German foreign minister and the parliamentary members involved in this issue. As long as all pending cases are not dismissed and payments begin, this indirectly constitutes a renunciation or partial renunciation of any form of legal immunity, the letter stated. Even Judge Bassler emphasized in his decision that all cases had to be dismissed, it said. Therefore, the letter said, the fund initiative is not able to agree that legal immunity exits.
Of course, it could never be precluded that new cases would be filed, Mr. Gentz said. Yet, there had been agreement with Mr. Lambsdorff until recently that new cases improperly submitted would be seen as violation of legal security, he said. Such a case apparently exists against IBM since it is based on transgressions by IBM's German subsidiary, and according to the agreement, the parent company is protected by the legal security afforded to members of the fund initiative. The case against the banks pending with Judge Kram is also typical of improper suits because the same facts used as the case's basis had already been withdrawn by the plaintiffs, some of whom are the same as before, Mr. Gentz said, adding that it makes things worse that this case was launched by Judge Kram herself. In the case of a suit against insurers filed in California, all indicators point to it being unallowable because German insurer Allianz, among others, is being sued again, Mr. Gentz said, pointing to cases already ruled on in Austria. "Mr. Eizenstat is now endeavoring to reach a settlement in the IBM case and that proves only one thing to me: If we do not take a hard-line approach with our argumentation, then nothing will happen in the United States," Mr. Gentz said. "It is not good to have to say that, but unfortunately that is how things are," he said.
Mr. Gentz thus supports the opinion that it would be unreasonable to begin payments from the fund to victims without sufficient legal security against further related cases. Should the Bundestag lower house of parliament, which is responsible for the ascertainment of legal security, nevertheless decide to begin payments, then the core and substance of the whole agreement would change, Mr. Gentz said. Industry would not fight this decision, however, as long as payments were made out of the contributions of the German government totalling DM5 billion, he said. "But then no one should expect that industry transfers its contribution to the fund," said Mr. Gentz.
The letter to Lambsdorff said, "If payment to victims has priority over attaining legal security because of their advanced age -- this point cannot of course simply be set aside -- one should clearly state that position. The criteria of legal immunity, at least in its agreed on form, would then be broken. The law would have to be changed accordingly." Mr. Gentz emphasized that industry is in no way demanding a change to the law, but having to change the law would be the consequence of such a process.