Apartheid $Billion Lawsuits Looming Large

They are victims of what could be viewed as one of the greatest corporate, accounting, banking, financial services and pension and benefit fund frauds in history." So says Ed Fagan, a controversial US lawyer, about his latest clients. He was not describing the employees of a corrupt company, but black South Africans who suffered under the brutal apartheid regime. Mr Fagan, who made his name suing Swiss banks on behalf of Holocaust survivors, is seeking $20bn (£11bn) in reparations from companies that, he argues, supported apartheid. They include the UK banks NatWest, Barclays and Standard Chartered. In the last two months Mr Fagan has put corporate South Africa on its guard and has subpoenaed both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu to give evidence. The law suits, filed in New York, promise to be a critical test of the limits of the 18th-century law known as the Alien Tort Claims Act. [more ]

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