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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