A $40 million settlement of the claims of families of Holocaust victims against Bank Austria, which former U.S. Senator Alfonse D’Amato helped craft, is generating significant opposition, imperiling its prospects of winning court approval.
Over the last six months, the two sides have hammered out a 40-page document, settling claims that Bank Austria, and a second bank that it now owns, Creditanstalt, in effect acted as financial agents for Nazis — mainly by reaping fees from the forcible “Aryanization” of Jewish property — after the Nazis annexed Austria in early 1938.
